"Did you not hear--" he asked. "Was not that a cry from the eastern tower?"
"Did you hear it too?" whispered the monks, their voices choked with terror.
"Who can it be? There is no one there, the tower is locked up?"
"What a night!--hark--there, again!"
"But now it sounds from the forest."
"We cannot distinguish in this uproar of noise."
"Very likely it is some wild animal hurt by a falling tree."
"No, no, it is the spirits wailing in the air--a bad omen!"
"Heaven help us--what evil can it bode?"
"Lord, have mercy upon us!"
The Abbot meanwhile had glanced round the room.
"Where is Donatus?" he said, "his bed is empty."
Donatus--in the general panic no one had missed him.
"Donatus--my son, my child!" cried the Abbot, struck by a horrible suspicion. "Look above, below, every one search the whole house for him."
And foremost of them all, driven by some inexplicable dread, the Abbot rushed out into the storm, bareheaded, heedless of the pelting of stones and tiles, past the lofts that were threatening to fall, across to the eastern tower--the door was locked.
"The key! see for the key of the eastern tower," he ordered across the dark court-yard; no one had followed him but Correntian; the rest stood scared in the door-way--their lamps blown out.
Correntian hurried out to the gate-house. The key was gone! beyond a doubt Donatus had locked himself up in the tower.
"Hapless, struggling child!" cried the Abbot. "What demon is tormenting you that you must fly up there and tell your woes to the winds." And for the first time in his life he turned upon one of the brethren in anger; in the glare of the lightning that relieved the darkness and revealed them to each other, he fixed his eye piercingly on Correntian.
"I fear, I fear,"--he said, "that you must have a heavy burden on your conscience and that the cry of anguish of that poor tortured soul is gone up to G.o.d against you."
Correntian stood before him, dogged and invincible, "I only did my duty."
"Donatus!" cried the Abbot again. "Donatus, come down, open the door to me, your father--Donatus--my son."
No answer, all was still; it seemed as though the very storm had paused to listen; but in vain--nothing was moving.
"He cannot hear us call," said Correntian. "The storm roars too wildly round the detached tower; leave him, it is midnight and time for the service for the dead. The bell will soon ring and he will hear that.
When the bell calls him he will come--I know him well." And he went back into the house.
The Abbot followed him with a deep sigh.
"My poor child! G.o.d help him to be victorious."
The storm had exhausted its fury and had swept away towards the heath at Mals. The pauses between the lightning and thunder were longer, the rain did not lash the windows so furiously, and the bell for the ma.s.s in memory of the Lady Uta tolled solemnly above the now distant tumult.
The monks a.s.sembled in the chapel in grave silence, for they were not yet free from the spell of the night"s alarms, and went down into the crypt or founders" hall.
All were there but Eusebius and Donatus.
Eusebius was now often absent, excused by reason of his advanced age--but Donatus had never before been missing. The Abbot delayed beginning the solemnity, his anxiety increasing with every minute; the bell had long ceased to toll, still Donatus came not.
The brethren looked at each other in silence; none dared to increase the Abbot"s trouble by uttering a word--but it was a mystery to every one. In vain did they strive to collect their thoughts for devotion.
Each one secretly felt his heart beating wildly, he himself knew not why. Hark--what was that? A rustle--a sound of doubtful shuffling steps; slowly and hesitatingly they came down the stairs--slow, dragging steps like those of Fate--some one was feeling the way painfully along the wall--feeling for the latch of the door. Full of an unaccountable horror all the monks fixed their eyes on the door; it opened and a figure entered--pale and stark as death, like a walking corpse--there was a scream of horror, for it was Donatus, his face streaming with sweat and blood--eyeless.
CHAPTER VI.
A lonely rider was at this same hour of the night traversing the storm-beaten forest that lay below Marienberg. His cloak clung dripping round him; his horse"s hoofs were inaudible on the soaking moss and he rode noiselessly forward towards a red, glowing spot in the distance, which looked to him like a little heap of burning charcoal shining dimly through the damp night air. He was not deceived, and a woman close by it lay with a child who vainly endeavoured to keep up the smouldering fire. The woman was lying on the bare earth, the child knelt close by, and the rider was startled as he caught sight of her face lighted up by the ruddy glow, and her large eyes which reflected the flame she strove to fan with her breath.
At this instant the midnight toll sounded out from the tower on the mountain, the woman raised her arm and shrieked in a piercing voice, "Aye! ring away! If there is a G.o.d in Heaven that is your knell. On the heath, in the wilderness, in the wood--thus may you all die as I am dying; may your house fall as my hovel fell. May despair rend your hearts, and remorse scorch your brains as they have mine."
"Mother, mother, do not curse, it is a sin, you yourself said so,"
implored the little girl, clasping the woman"s outstretched hand with a soothing gesture.
"It is only what they have done," complained the woman. "Oh, I was pious and good like you once; I would have been content if only they would have let me see Donatus for one hour."
The rider pulled up his horse behind the bushes, and dismounted to listen.
"Only one hour," she went on, "in return for a whole ruined life-time!
But even that they would not grant me--not even that. No, let me be, I have nothing but curses that I can fling at their heads; give me an arm to strike with, and I will spare my words."
"Woman," cried a voice suddenly behind her, "here is the arm you need to carry out your curse, I am just in the mood for such a task!"
The child started up in alarm at seeing the grim looking man, and fled to the other side of her mother.
The woman gazed thoughtfully at the stranger; something in his face struck her, but she could not tell what. The rider tied up his horse, and flung himself down on his cloak by the woman"s side.
"Your rage is against the monks of Marienberg; what have they done to you?"
And the woman told him at full length all that had happened from the beginning, how she had lost her child and her husband for the sake of the strange infant, and how she had loved him so much all the same, that she would willingly have sacrificed everything if only she might have clasped him once to her heart, and have made her last confession to him. But not even that would they grant her, a dying woman. They had driven the little girl from the door, and called her an adder. Ah! and there was a great weight on her mind about the girl too, and now the child must perish miserably; for when she was dead there would be no one to care for her in all the wide world.
The stranger looked absently at the child; he paused for a moment as if the large, tawny-brown eyes with their dark, meeting brows had struck him; but another idea possessed him wholly.
"And you do not know who the boy was that you nursed?" he asked almost breathlessly.
"No, they did not tell me."
"Do not you know either where he was brought from?"