"That will keep us too long!"

"Not five minutes."

Hans strode by my side across the cabbage patch, and to avoid all detours went directly to, and through, his bed-room window and through his sitting-room, and I followed close at his heels, for I knew the way of old. Once in the yard, Hans began to pull with all his might at the cracked alarm-bell which hung there in a sort of ruinous belfry, and whose unmelodious clank used to summon the men to or from work. They came fast enough at the well-known signal from their quarters and from the stables, and before five minutes were over we had left the yard and taken the path to the Trantow beeches, followed by a squad of men with stable-lanterns.

The last bright streak had faded from the western horizon, and the darkness was so intense that in the woods it seemed no darker than it had been in the open field. The oppressive sultriness of the atmosphere had increased, if possible, and now the thunder began to mutter, and the tops of the trees to toss about in the rising wind. The nightingales had hushed in expectation of the impending storm. Leaving the men with the lanterns far behind, I hurried through the wood, followed closely at first by Hans, who presently stopped, however, calling to me that there was no use for such frantic haste, as we could do nothing without the lanterns. I knew that very well, but I was urged on by an impulse that I could not withstand. What I meant to do, I could not precisely have told, nor did I pause to consider; I only hurried forward wildly as if life and death were at stake. How I got through the woods, by a wretched path, in the pitchy darkness, without breaking arm or leg, or dashing my skull against a tree, is more than I can explain at this hour.

Whether it was the blue gleam of the lightnings which flashed at intervals through the clear s.p.a.ces in the wood, or the peculiarity of my eyes which could always distinguish objects a little, even in the deepest darkness, or the excitement, which in certain moments seems to awaken dormant faculties within us, I cannot say; I only know that in an incredibly short time I had traversed the woods, and by the cessation of the rustling, by the stronger blast of the wind in my face, by the altered sound of the thunder, and by the brighter glare of the lightning, I perceived that I was on the heath. This heath was about a mile wide, bounded on three sides by the Rossow pine woods and the Trantowitz beeches, and on the fourth side, to my left, joining the great moors on the coast, which ran up into it in various places in narrower or wider strips. No tree grew over this whole broad expanse; the single mark which arrested the eye was a hillock, overgrown with bushes and surrounded by large stones--doubtless an ancient barrow--which stood about midway of the distance, and served as a boundary to mark the commencement of the moor. One could hardly speak of a road here, for the way changed with every season of the year, even with every change of the weather; travellers rode, drove, or walked, wherever they found it most practicable. More than one accident had happened here; and even in my time a man who tried to cross the heath by night with an empty wagon had driven into one of the broad deep turf-pits and been drowned with his team.

While I ran rather than walked across the heath, the details of this accident, which I had long forgotten, came all back to my recollection.

I remembered the man's name, and that he was betrothed to a young woman in Trantowitz, a pretty fair-haired creature, who could not be comforted for the loss of her lover, and had been seen weeks afterwards sitting on the mound with eyes fixed on the spot where he had perished.

It struck me that the poor pretty creature had had a slight likeness to Hermine.

A wild terror seized me, and I suddenly stood still, listening into the night with a wildly-beating heart. I thought I had heard a faint cry at no great distance. But from what direction? Before me? to the right? or to the left? Or was I mistaken altogether, and had my excitement deceived me and changed the wailing sounds of the wind to human calls for help? There it was again! This time I was not mistaken, and I caught the direction from which the cry came. It was exactly before me--no, it was on my right--no, on my left. Certainly now it was to the right. Then I heard it again nearer, and again from another direction, as if the ghosts of those who had perished all over the desolate heath had all arisen from their marshy graves and were calling to each other.

Nor could I see a single step before me: even the lightning had ceased for some minutes: it seemed as if I could touch the darkness with my hand. I cast a desperate glance around, and saw to my unspeakable joy the lights of the lanterns approaching, though still at some distance.

I called with all the power of my lungs for them to make haste; then hurried blindly forward, and started terrified back, as suddenly, in the glare of a vivid flash of lightning, I saw just before me the gigantic spectrally white figure of a rearing horse. I had come upon one of the carriages, which had been abandoned by its occupants, leaving the coachman who had bravely stood to his post, and strove in vain to unharness the horses.

"Where are the others?" I cried, hastening to help the man without rightly knowing what I was doing.

"G.o.d knows," he answered. "I have had my hands full here."

"Here come men with lanterns."

"It is high time. Stand still, you devil's imp!"

Now Hans came up with several of the lantern-bearers. The horses stood still, shivering with terror, and snorting from their distended nostrils great clouds of steam in the lantern-light.

On the back seat of the carriage lay a figure stretched at full length.

The light of the lantern fell on a pale haggard face--it was Arthur.

"What has happened to him?" I asked.

Hans asked no question: he knew what had happened when a young man, who has never learned to control himself; lies stretched upon the back seat of a carriage in his return from a picnic, and not all the turmoil of the unchained elements can awaken him from his stupid sleep.

"Never mind about him," said the driver; "he is safe enough."

"One of you must stay here," I said to the men with lanterns. "Forward, the rest!"

We went on, the men, of whom there were five or six, holding up their lanterns, and shouting all together at intervals, calling all who might hear to try to get to us.

We were answered from different points; it was now plain that the whole company was widely scattered. The carriages alone had kept somewhat together; and a minute later I came upon another which had been overturned and dashed to pieces by the maddened horses, so that we had no difficulty in getting them clear of what remained of the harness.

Then we found the third, which had turned a little to one side and stalled, sunk up to the axle in a marshy place, and the driver had released the horses by cutting the traces.

It was a strange and weird-looking scene. The lightning flashed so incessantly that we seemed enveloped in its awful glare. Then the shouts and cries of the frightened excursionists who came hurrying up from all sides, the swearing of the coachmen and grooms, the snorting and struggling of the scared horses, and amid all, the mutterings and long roll of thunder, the whistling and shrieking of the gusts of wind that every now and then swept with frightful fury over the heath, and seemed to hold up the rain, of which only occasional heavy drops smote me in the face; the whole company, so far as they were now collected, resembling a party about to be led to execution, the men with agitated features, and the women pale as death, and all bearing abundant traces of their wanderings about the heath and the miry ground.

But if it had been difficult to get them together, I now found that it was impossible to keep them so. All were for pushing on at once, Why waste a moment here? All were together. In an instant the rain would pour down in torrents, the lanterns be put out, and what would become of them then?

"Forward, my friends, forward!" screamed the steuerrath, and Herr von Granow also shouted "Forward! forward!" and in the next moment all had started.

Amid the indescribable confusion, the calling, shouting, hurrying up and down of so many persons, I had found it impossible to make sure whether really all, as they said, were together; but I knew that I had not seen her whom alone I was looking for, nor had I seen Fraulein Duff. I had imagined for some reason--perhaps I had heard some one say it--that both ladies were in the fourth carriage, which was behind the others, and reported to be safe; but as the company set out, with the lanterns in front, this fourth carriage came up.

It was the commerzienrath's great family carriage. I sprang to it and looked in. There was a pile of cloaks and shawls which had been left behind in the hurry, and Fraulein Duff, leaning back in the corner, and looking at me, who was half wild with anxiety, with eyes from which extreme terror had banished all expression. In vain did I try to get from her where she had left Hermine. She only muttered, as if delirious, "Seek faithfully and thou shalt find," and then broke into hysterical weeping.

Now Anthony, who had in the meantime been adjusting the traces, told me that the young lady had sprung from the carriage not ten minutes before, just as the lanterns came near. He did not know why, for the young lady had not been nearly so much frightened as the rest, and had a little before said to Fraulein Duff that she might be sure she would not forsake her. He thought she went over towards the left, but he was not sure, for he had had hard work to manage the horses, that had been quiet enough all along, but now could not be kept still.

With this he mounted his seat and started to follow the others. I called to him and ordered him to stop; but either he did not or would not hear me, or else he could not hold the horses any longer--be that as it might, the next minute I was alone, while the company with the lanterns, under Hans's guidance, kept their way across the heath towards the woods.

CHAPTER XVII.

I was about to hurry after them, and compel them to give me some a.s.sistance, when a flash of lightning of unusual vividness showed me the hillock or "giant's barrow" which lay about a hundred paces from where I stood, and which I had not perceived before. Whether I expected to get a wider range of vision from its top, or whether it was an instinctive impulse, or both, I do not know, but in the next moment I was at the foot of the hillock among the great stones. Another dazzling flash, and a shudder seized me, and my hair began to rise on my head.

There, on the top, by the hazel-bushes that were bent and lashed by the storm, surrounded by a spectral light, stood with loose-flying hair the unhappy girl looking out for her lover who was drowned in the mora.s.s.

In an instant the pitchy darkness closed again, and a crash of thunder drowned my sudden cry. Had I lost my senses? And instantly, while yet the thunder crashed and the thick darkness surrounded me, it flashed upon me like a heavenly revelation, and my heart gave a great throb, and I gave a shout of joy, and in a moment I was at the top and had found her and lifted her in my arms and shouted again, and she wound her arms around me and clung to my breast, so close! so close! and I kneeled before her and she leaned over me and said:

"Quick, quick, here in the dark where I do not see you; I love you! I love you!"

"And I love you!"

"None but me?"

"None but you!"

"None but me! none but me! And if the earth should open now and swallow us both--none but me?"

"None, none!"

Again came a flash illuminating everything for a moment with the brightness of day, and she laughed and rejoiced aloud and threw herself into my arms crying:

"Now I see you: now I can look at you! Oh how lovely this is! How beautiful you are! Now carry me down the hill as far as the stones. Now let me go, my strong one, my hero, everything to me!"

"Let me carry you further; I can do it easily."

"I know you can: else would I love you so much? But now let me go; you must not think me a weakling."

I let her glide from my arms upon one of the great stones: she laid her hands upon my shoulders, and I saw for a moment her sweet defiant face and her eyes that flashed as if with indignation, as she said in a firm voice:

"Never forget that I am not weak like other women; and if you had not come to look for me here--yes, if you had not found me, I would have drowned myself here in the mora.s.s; and I _will_ drown myself the moment you cease to love me. And now come!"

She threw herself on my breast and glided from my arms to the ground, and we went hand in hand over the heath, the incessant lightnings showing us the pathless way, while the thunder rolled, and the rain which had been delaying so long came down first in heavy warm drops, and then in torrents. What cared we for the storm and the rain? What cared we that we were alone upon the heath?

This was, indeed, our crowning joy: for me, to know that I had both the right and power to protect her, and that I had in truth the strength, had there been need, to carry my beloved to Trantowitz and to Zehrendorf; for her, to be thus protected by him she had loved so long, who now was all her own, and all had happened just as her wayward heart and romantic fancy desired. And now all came from her lips, in broken confused phrases, in thoughts and fancies that gleamed and vanished like the lightnings around us, now awakening one memory and now another, just as the objects around us momently flashed out the darkness and vanished into it again; the brown heath, the glimmering moor-water, and in the forest the bushes to the right and left and the gigantic trunks of the trees whose great boughs were wildly tossed hither and thither by the blast, with a crashing and groaning and roaring as if the world were coming to an end. But the wilder the uproar about us, the more she exulted, and laughed with delight when in the noise we could no longer understand each other's words. She even grew angry when after we had nearly traversed the woods, two lanterns appeared moving rapidly in our direction.

"Let us run off," she said, seriously, and then clapped her hands, and we now heard "Hallo! Hallo!" in the good Hans's powerful voice.

"It is he!" she cried; "my good Hans, my dear Hans, my best Hans! He shall hear it first. No one has a better right."