The clerk followed them, talking to himself and gesticulating with great animation, and they all soon disappeared in the dark windings of the mine.
Christine now came out, casting her troubled glances in every direction. As soon as she perceived Arwed she hastened to him. "Mac Donalbain was with me just now," said she anxiously. "He pressed me silently to his bosom, and then rushed forth as if frantic! Where is he? where is Megret?"
"Megret is essaying a new method of springing mines," answered Arwed, "and will soon be here again."
"And Mac Donalbain has accompanied him!" cried the trembling wife. "I fear some mischief is on foot here."
"Causeless apprehension!" said Arwed; "the clerk is with them. Megret"s undertaking will require the presence of several workmen, and his honor as an officer is pledged for his speedy return."
"What have you to do with that bad man?" asked the still suspicious Christine--but the approach of two men prevented a reply. They were Swedenborg and the superintendent of the mines. The latter separated from Swedenborg with a respectful inclination, and pa.s.sed on in obedience to the calls of duty to some other portion of the mine.
Swedenborg however advanced towards Arwed.
"I greet you, vigorous swimmer upon the sea of misfortune," said Swedenborg to Arwed, offering his hand in a most friendly manner.
"Welcome to your kingdom, sir mining-counsellor!" answered Arwed. "What news do you bring from the upper world into this abyss?"
"I bring news of a diet which will take Ulrika"s crown and place it upon her husband"s head," said Swedenborg; "of an armistice with Denmark, and peace with Poland and Prussia."
"And Russia?" asked Arwed hastily.
"Remains implacable, and is making new preparations," answered Swedenborg, shrugging his shoulders.
"These false steps are a great misfortune to my father-land!" cried Arwed despondingly. "Peace with powerful Russia should have been the first object."
Swedenborg had meantime kept his eyes immovably fixed upon the youth, and now appeared to have subjected the lineaments of his face to a sufficient trial. He became so gloomy, and the glances of his black eyes so piercing, that Arwed could hardly support it.
"How came you by this love of peace?" he finally asked the youth in a reproachful tone, "when your heart is dest.i.tute of it, and you have descended into this mine with b.l.o.o.d.y intentions?"
"If your spiritual eyes are sharp enough to read my heart," answered Arwed, with surprise, "you must know and honor the motives which actuate me."
"Every motive is blameworthy," answered Swedenborg, with an elevated voice, "which induces an earthworm to endeavor to antic.i.p.ate the dispensations of Providence. Yet will His mercy spare you this sin; for behold, the arm of the fearful Nemesis is already raised, and at the Lord"s command it will fall in destruction upon the criminal."
Christine had drawn close to Arwed during this conversation, and he now perceived the feverish trembling of her frame, caused by Swedenborg"s prophecy.
At this moment a young miner came and asked, "where shall I find major Gyllenstierna."
"Here he stands!" answered Arwed, "probably you wish to bring me to the officer who was just now here."
"No, he merely sends you this billet," said the young man, departing.
"What can he have to write to me about, situated as we are?" Arwed peevishly exclaimed. Unfolding the billet, which was written in pencil, and stepping to the nearest pitch-pan, he read as follows:
"To appease the manes of your king, you have demanded satisfaction of me. I had however previously promised it to myself and to myself therefore, precedence is due. From you I have only to expect a _possible_ death. I shall inflict it upon myself with a surer hand. Mac Donalbain shares my fate. In grat.i.tude to the countess Gyllenstierna for the manner in which she rejected my addresses, I have persuaded her husband that he belongs to this earth as little as myself. Many will think the manner of my death strange; but I wish to die in the way of my profession, and at the same time to preserve my body from the ignominy of a judicial investigation. I have the honor to greet you.
_Au revoir_, I dare not say.
MEGRET."
The horror-stricken Arwed had hardly read to the end, when suddenly the whole broad s.p.a.ce swam in a sea of fire. A terrible explosion, as of a powder magazine, of which echo increased the frightful roar a thousand fold, shook the ground under Arwed"s feet, and displaced heavy ma.s.ses of stone from the sides of the cavern which fell with a crash to the bottom of the mine. Loud screams suddenly arose on all sides, to which a mournful silence immediately succeeded, and from the direction in which Megret and Mac Donalbain had gone, came rolling in a dense white-gray powder-smoke, which twirled in waving clouds along the top of the arch, and soon filling the whole mine, wrapped every object in its impenetrable veil.
"What was that?" stammered Christine, clinging to Arwed for support.
"G.o.d"s judgment!" solemnly and majestically answered Swedenborg. "Wo to the sinner who wickedly and presumptuously draws it down upon his head before the appointed time."
"Let us go and see if it be possible to render any a.s.sistance,"
proposed Arwed; and proceeded with Swedenborg toward the place whence the smoke issued. Christine followed them with a misgiving heart. They were met by the old clerk, who ran up to them with a black and disfigured face.
"You appear to have been near the scene of the accident," said Arwed to him. "Are there many people injured?"
"Thank G.o.d only two; who, moreover, are no great loss!" answered the clerk, turning again to show them the way. "An officer, wishing to instruct us how to blow out the ore, so managed that instead of the ore he blew himself into the air, and a piece of the roof of the mine with him."
"The explosion was too violent for a mere removal of ore," remarked Swedenborg.
"Very true, most honored sir," answered the clerk. "There also went with it a small cask of powder which was standing near."
By this time they had arrived at the place. The thick smoke almost suffocated them. The torches of the miners, hurrying to and fro, like nebulous stars, faintly lighted the scene of destruction. A monstrous mountain ma.s.s, consisting mostly of rocks and stones, had become loosened by the force of the shock, and covered the bottom to a great height with fragments, through the fissures of which little flames were seen playing.
"They will lie quietly in this coffin until the last day!" observed the clerk.
"In G.o.d"s name!" shrieked Christine, "who is the other sufferer?"
"The brigand leader, who was sentenced here for life," answered the clerk, with indifference.
"Mac Donalbain!" murmured the poor wife, sinking lifeless to the earth.
CHAPTER LIII.
Christine lay at the parsonage in that last hard struggle which releases the soul from its earthly imprisonment. At her bed-side sat Arwed, with humid eyes, his hands in the cold grasp of hers. Near her pillow stood Swedenborg, with his piercing prophet-glance fixed immovably upon the sufferer.
"The symptoms of death are already observable," whispered he to the weeping curate. "Her end is near."
"She has suffered so much," said Arwed, "that if her heart were iron it must break under these hard and repeated blows."
At this moment Christine suddenly rose in her bed, turned her beauteous eyes with heavenly tenderness upon Arwed, and eagerly pressed his hand to her bosom.
"At the brink of the grave," said she, "all false appearances must vanish. So near the source of eternal truth, I may now speak the truth to you. I have loved you, Arwed, loved you with all the powers of my pa.s.sionate soul, from the moment when you stood before me in the knight"s hall in the full perfection of youth and manliness. But this love was my misery, for I was already secretly married. The caprices with which I often tormented you, alas, they came from a bleeding heart! At Ravensten did Mac Donalbain"s infamous profession first become fully clear to me, and I made every possible effort to withdraw him from it. But the chains of vice hold strong! Only by slow and gentle degrees could my husband disengage himself from his a.s.sociates; and, before he had time to accomplish the work, his punishment overtook him. What I have done for him was but the performance of a wife"s duty.
His self-murder is my divorce for this world and the next, and now my only consolation is, that I shall be able to extend to you a FREE hand when we hereafter meet in eternal light."
As she proceeded, her voice had increased in clearness and fulness of tone, her eye became bright and flashing, and purple roses burned upon her wasted cheeks.
"You have spoken too fast and too earnestly, countess," said the curate. "In your present situation this excitement may cause your death."
"I have it already in my heart, reverend sir," said the invalid in a low voice; "and I know but too well that it is too late to preserve life. Yet I thank you for this care, as well as for the religious consolation you have afforded me in this last heavy trial."
She held out her hand to him, which the weeping man pressed to his lips, and the deep silence which followed, was only broken by the sobs of those present.