"So it is," muttered Hans.

"Only when he wins, you understand," said Granow, laughing at his own wit. "He considers it vicious to take from other people the money which they very likely need. He has no need of money himself; have you Hans?"

"Got no use for it," said Hans.

"There, you hear him yourself; he has got no use for it. He must marry, that's the thing for him; then he will find out a use for his money. We were just now talking about it."

Hans's red face took a somewhat deeper shade, and he cast a shy look at me. It struck me that I had myself been one of the subjects of their conversation.

"He will not find it so easy as you who have only to ask and have," I said.

"I do not understand you," said the little man, with evident embarra.s.sment.

"I mean that this is what you told me yourself the day before yesterday," I answered. "You even mentioned names; but it can't be managed; it really can't, although Herr von Granow has considered the matter from every side."

I uttered the last words in an ironical tone, turning to Hans as I spoke. Hans, whose head was never particularly clear, could catch no glimpse of my meaning at all; but Herr von Granow understood me perfectly.

"A jest should not be taken more seriously than it is meant," he said, pouring himself out a gla.s.s of wine with a hand that visibly shook.

"Or better, one should not venture to jest upon certain subjects at all," I retorted, following his example.

"I am old enough not to need any admonitions from you," said the little man, with a pitiful attempt to a.s.sume an intimidating tone.

"And yet you have not yet learned to bridle your tongue," I replied, looking him steadily in the face.

"It seems you intend to insult me, young man," he cried, setting down hastily the gla.s.s of which he had only tasted.

"Shall I make that fact clear to you by throwing this gla.s.s in your face?"

"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" cried Hans.

"Enough!" exclaimed the little man, pushing back his chair and rising; "I will bear these insults no longer. I will have satisfaction, if this gentleman is ent.i.tled to be dealt with in that way."

"My father is a respectable officer in the customs," I answered; "my grandfather was a minister, and so was my great-grandfather. Yours was a shepherd, was he not?"

"We shall meet again," cried the little man, rushing out of the room, banging the door after him. In another moment we heard his carriage rattling over the pavement of the court.

CHAPTER XVI.

"Now, what is the meaning of all this?" asked Hans, who had never moved from his chair during the whole scene.

I broke into loud laughter.

"It means," I replied, "that Herr von Granow is a blackguard who has had the audacity to defame a lady whom we both respect, in a manner which deserves far more serious treatment; but besides this, I wanted to get him away--I must speak to you. You must help me--you must help him----"

I did not know how to begin, and in my excitement I strode wildly up and down the room.

"Drink off half a bottle at once," said Hans, meditatively; "that is a specific for clearing the brain."

But without having recourse to this specific, I was presently calm enough to tell him what it was that so agitated me. I related to him everything from the beginning; my first suspicion of Herr von Zehren, which had been completely lulled until Granow's loquacity had aroused it again; then Herr von Zehren's half admission of the previous evening, and the circ.u.mstances of his departure--keeping silent, however, about the letter of the steuerrath, which was not my secret--and then my exploration in the cellar this morning, and finally Christel's disclosure. I wound up by saying: "Herr von Trantow, I do not know what you think of his conduct, but I know that you have a great regard for him, and that," I added, coloring, "you deeply respect Constance, Fraulein von Zehren. Help me if you can. I am resolved to risk everything rather than let him fall into the snare which clearly has been set for him."

Von Trantow's cigar had gone out while I was speaking, nor had he made the slightest attempt to re-kindle it--an evidence of the rapt attention with which he was listening to my statement. As soon as I paused, he stretched out his great hand to me over the table, and was about to say something, but perceived that both our gla.s.ses were empty, so replenished them instead, and leaning back in his chair, sank into the profoundest meditation.

"I do not think it probable," I proceeded, warmed by his speechless sympathy, "that they will capture him; for I am convinced that he will defend himself to the last extremity."

Hans nodded, to intimate that he had not a doubt of it.

"But to think of their bringing him to trial, of their throwing him into prison? Herr von Trantow, shall we suffer that, if we can prevent it? Only yesterday he told me how one of his ancestors, also named Malte, when a prisoner in Uselin, was rescued by the strong arm, and at the sword's point, by one of yours, named Hans like yourself, upon a message brought by a faithful squire. The whole story has come round again. I am the faithful squire, and you and I will cut him out as they did then."

"That we will!" cried Hans, smiting the table with his heavy fist so that the bottles and gla.s.ses rang. "If they shut him up, we will blow up the prison."

"We must never let it get to that point," I said, smiling involuntarily, despite my anxiety at Hans's blind zeal. "We must warn him beforehand; we must get to him before anything happens; we must frustrate the whole plan founded upon Pinnow's and Jock's villainous treachery. But how? How can it be done?"

"How can it be done?" echoed Hans, thoughtfully rubbing his head.

We--or rather I, for Hans contented himself with playing the attentive listener, and incessantly replenishing my gla.s.s, with the view, apparently, of a.s.sisting my invention--designed a hundred plans, of which each was less practicable than the previous one, until I hit upon the following scheme, which, like all the others, had the fullest and promptest adhesion of the good Hans.

If their plan was to seize Herr von Zehren _flagrante delicto_, as Christel's revelation indicated, it was most probable that, as was their usual plan of operations in similar cases, they had laid an ambush for him. This ambush could only be posted upon a road that he must of necessity take, or upon one to which he was purposely enticed.

In the latter case we could form no conjectures of its disposition; but in the former we might a.s.sume with tolerable a.s.surance that the ambush would be stationed in the neighborhood of the castle. In every event our aim must be to reach him as soon as possible. But to effect this but one plan was practicable; we must set out at once with Pinnow, and as he was not likely to take us voluntarily as pa.s.sengers, we must be prepared to compel him to it. How this was precisely to be done, we could leave to chance; the all-important thing was that we should be in Zanowitz at the right time. Pinnow would certainly not sail before night-fall, as the smuggler-yacht would unquestionably come in under cover of the darkness, and then would approach as near the sh.o.r.e as possible. When we were once on board, it would be time to think about the rest.

We next took another point into consideration. That our scheme was not to be accomplished without force, both Hans and I were thoroughly aware. Nothing could be done with guns in the darkness, nor would cutla.s.ses or hunting-knives be sufficient against Pinnow and his men, who all carried knives. We must trust to pistols.

Hans had a pair; but one pair was not sufficient. I remembered that there was another pair hanging in Herr von Zehren's chamber, and these we must get. I thought little of Constance's prohibition from entering the house before her father's return; here were heavier interests at stake; this was a matter of life and death. Indeed it was a question if it would not be judicious to give Fraulein von Zehren a hint at least of the state of affairs; but we concluded not to do so, as she could not possibly help us, and would only be alarmed to no purpose. But we thought it prudent to take into our counsel old Christian, who could be relied upon in any case. We could arrange a pre-concerted signal with him, a light in one of the gable windows, or something of that sort, by which he could let us know at a distance, in case we got back unmolested to Zehrendorf, whether the coast was clear about the castle.

By the time we had got so far with our deliberations, it I was two o'clock, and we had until dusk at least three hours, which were to be got through with with as much patience as we could muster--a hard task for me, who was in a burning fever of impatience. Hans showed himself the most amiable of hosts. He brought out his best cigars and his best wine; he was more talkative than I had ever known him; the prospect of an adventure of so serious a character as that which we had in view, seemed to have had the good effect of arousing him out of his usual apathy. He recounted the simple story of his life: how he had early lost his parents, how he had been sent to a boarding-school at the provincial capital, where he was prepared for the gymnasium, in which he remained until his seventeenth year and rose to the fourth cla.s.s.

Then he became a farmer; took his estate in hand as soon as he was of age, and had been living upon it six years--he was now in his thirtieth--quietly and placidly, using his weapons only against the creatures of the forest and the field, raising his wheat, shearing his sheep, smoking his cigars, drinking his wine, and playing his cards.

There was but one romantic feature in all his prosaic life, and that was his love for Constance. It was in the year that he came to live upon his estate, that she came back to her father; and to see Constance, to love her, and to love her still more devotedly long after he had been convinced of the hopelessness of his pa.s.sion, to drown this hopeless pa.s.sion in wine, so far as was in his power--this was the poor fellow's fate. He accepted it with perfect resignation, convinced that he was not the man to make his own fortune, any more than he had been able, when at school, to do his own exercises. Why and for whom should he plague himself with work? He had all that he wanted in the present, and there was no future for him to look forward to. He was the last of his race, and had not even a kinsman in the world. When he died, his estate, as a lapsed fief, reverted to the crown. The crown then might see what was to be done with the ruined barns and stables and with the dilapidated house. He let decay and weather work their will. He only needed a room, and in this room we were now sitting, while Hans went on with his recital in his monotonous way, and the rain beating against the low windows kept up a melancholy accompaniment.

A conversation in which there was a continual reference to Constance, even if her name was not actually mentioned, had a strangely painful charm for me. Although Hans did not breathe a syllable of complaint against the fair girl, it was plain from his story that she had at first encouraged his bashful attentions, and only altered her behavior to him after her meeting with Prince Prora at the watering-place two years before. And Hans was evidently not the only one who had received encouragement. Karl von Sylow, Fritz von Zarrentin--in a word, almost every one of the young n.o.blemen who formed Herr von Zehren's circle of acquaintance, had earlier or later, with greater or less right, held himself to be the favored one. Even Granow, although from the first he was made the b.u.t.t of his companions, might boast that he was favorably looked upon by the young lady during the earlier months of his residence; indeed Hans still considered Granow's chance by no means desperate, for the little man was very rich, and she would only marry a rich man, he added, with a deep sigh, as he filled his gla.s.s once more.

At Hans's last words I sprang from the table and threw open the window.

I felt as if I must suffocate, or as if the low ceiling with its bent beams would fall in upon me.

"Is it still raining?" Hans asked.

"Not at this moment," I said. But one of those thick fogs of which several had pa.s.sed over in the course of the day, was drifting in from the sea.

"Real smugglers' weather," said Hans. "The old man ought to be ashamed of himself to drag his friends out on such a day. But that cannot be helped. Shall we not drink another bottle? It will be cursedly cold to-night."

I said I thought we had already drunk more than enough, and that it was high time to start.

"Then I will get ready," said Hans, and went into his chamber, where I for a long time heard him rummaging among his water-boots.

I had always considered myself pretty cool in moments of danger; but in Hans I had met my master. While he was overhauling the things in his room, I heard him through the half-open door whistling to himself as cheerily as if we were going out to shoot hares, instead of an adventure of life and death. To be sure, I said to myself, his is a case of hopeless love, and Herr von Zehren is merely a friend, neighbor, and equal, whom he feels it his duty to a.s.sist against the hated police. That Hans, in combating for a cause that did not really concern him, was doing much more, or at least acting far more disinterestedly than I, did not occur to me.