"Calm yourself," said the Prince. "Torture would in this case only render the matter worse. I shall not permit it."

"G.o.d reward you, gracious Prince, for making the council of evil doers of no avail."

"Justice must be on both sides," said the Prince thoughtfully. "What I am about to say to you now will perhaps not meet with so much approval from you." Saying this he took up another bundle of papers, while his brow became overcast. "The Church Council informs me that it has been forced to issue the ban of excommunication over you, which as a spiritual court it has the authority to do, through the power given by Christ to his Church, without asking the consent of the Sovereign of the land, nay more even against him in person."

"To his Church," cried Erastus. "Since when however do the few counsellors mentioned by the Sovereign, const.i.tute the Church."

"Let us drop that matter for the moment," replied the Kurfurst. "For the present let us inquire into the cause of this step. Here is the deposition of Dr. Pigavetta, accusing you of being the especial head of the Arian conspiracy."

"Pigavetta," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Erastus.

"Calm yourself; if I doubted you, you would not be sitting here but in the great Tower. The facts adduced by the italian Doctor, do not amount to much. That you went often to Ladenburg with Xylander and even drove out with him, that Sylva.n.u.s also as he was being brought in here begged you to warn Neuser, that you in every case have taken under your care and protection the imprisoned blasphemers does not prove anything to me. Here however is the sworn a.s.sertion that you have concealed Neuser's papers and hidden them in your apartment, as they would never be sought for in the Castle itself." The Kurfurst stopped short.

"Will Your Gracious Highness order my apartment to be searched from cellar to garret; if a line of Neuser's be found, let my head be laid between my feet," said Erastus coldly.

"For your sake I am sorry, but not to draw down on myself the reproach of partiality, I could not spare you this." The Prince summoned a page by knocking on the table, and ordered the Amtmann Hartmann Hartmanni to be admitted. The Amtmann appeared at the door holding a bundle of papers under his arm. From his remarks it could be gathered that he had already fulfilled his commission whilst Erastus was being retained in audience. The astonished physician fixed his eyes on the Prince. This proceeding during his absence was new to him. It showed him, how low he had already fallen.

"You have completed the search of the papers belonging to my Counsellor?" asked the Kurfurst.

"No great search was necessary," replied Herr Hartmann. "Neuser's papers laid on the top."

"How!" called out the Kurfurst and Erastus at the same time. The Magistrate handed some papers over to the Prince.

"The plague take it!" called out Frederic the Pious, looking at Erastus with flaming eyes.

Erastus pressed forwards and turned the papers over with trembling hands. "A letter of Neuser's to Blandrata, a doc.u.ment from Beckhess the Transylvanian amba.s.sador, letters of the Superintendent David in Klausenburg, letters of Vehe, Suter, and Sylva.n.u.s ..." Angrily he threw the bundle down on the table. "I do not know anything about these letters. A rascally trick to destroy me! Where did you find these papers, Amtmann?"

"In your desk."

The Kurfurst looked stedfastly at Erastus, as if he wished to read to the bottom of his soul. "Remember, most Gracious Lord," said the physician, "that for months a scaffolding has stood before my windows, and that anyone who wishes can enter my apartment."

The prince appeared for a while to struggle within himself, and then asked. "Did you discover anything else?"

The Magistrate smiled mockingly, and handed a note over to Erastus. "Is that your hand-writing. Counsellor?"

Erastus cast a glance at the writing. "Yes, it is."

"This letter lay also among Neuser's papers, most Gracious Lord," said the Amtmann. "Hear what the Counsellor writes to this conspirator.

'Dear Herr Adam! I have received your letter and quite agree with you.

Matters are going on well, to-morrow you will receive the required pa.s.s, and then follow my directions exactly in all things, greet the Inspector. Your friend!' Does Your Highness now believe that a conspiracy of the Arians exists in Your Highness' lands, to lead the Palatinate to Talmudism and Mahommedanism?"

"Did you write this, Erastus?" asked the Kurfurst.

The exhausted man's whole body trembled, the words choked in his throat as he answered: "I have never written to Neuser.... as far as I can recollect.... He never asked me for credentials, and I never promised him any."

"Not even last summer, when Neuser used his vacation, in endeavoring to obtain an office in Transylvania?" asked the Amtmann.

"I know nothing about this. The letter is a forgery."

"Then these letters must also be forgeries," replied the Amtmann mockingly, handing over another bundle of papers to the physician.

Erastus looked at them and turned pale. "These are letters from Bullinger to me, that is if you have not mixed some counterfeits with them."

The Amtmann turned to the Kurfurst. "From this letter of the Zurich Theologian may be gathered, how inimically and hostilely the accused was wont to speak to strangers of the Church Council of the Palatinate of which he was a member."

Erastus replied: "To strangers? I think I daily said to the Prince what I wrote to Bullinger."

The Kurfurst looked angrily at him: "That does not excuse your treachery. You are not allowed to calumniate my Counsellors to the Swiss. What more?" added he turning to the Amtmann.

"I found nothing else among the papers belonging to the Counsellor, but in a gipsire belonging to his daughter Lydia was this note, in which some unknown person makes an a.s.signation with her of an evening on the secluded Holtermann, as he has important communications to make concerning her father." Violently did Erastus pluck the note from his hand. His head was dizzy. This then was the secret appointment which caused Lydia to dislocate her foot. In what terrible hands might his child find herself?

"How did the Maiden explain the note?" asked the Kurfurst coldly.

"She refused any explanation, till she had spoken with her father."

The Kurfurst laughed derisively. On this Erastus fell fainting to the ground. Busy the whole day previous, without his night's rest, hunted down since the early morning, fasting, prey to the most violent feelings, the sickly physician succ.u.mbed rather to anger, weariness, and exasperation than to fear.

"The best confession," said the Prince gloomily. "Take him to the Tower, but treat him gently. He has rendered me and the Palatinate good service; the Lord have mercy on him for wishing to undo them."

"And Your Highness will still not permit the question by rack to be used on the plainly obdurate prisoners, who are wilfully keeping back the truth from the authorities?"

"I will not longer stand in the way of the conduct of the trial," said the Prince sorrowfully. "Do nothing cruel except through strict necessity. But I will have light in this darkness. If yonder man betrayed me, whom indeed can I trust?"

The Prince left the room with an expression of the profoundest melancholy, the Amtmann however called in the pages from the ante-chamber, who raised up Erastus and sprinkled water over him, till he came to himself. But the wretched man only opened his eyes, in order to find himself taken off to the Tower. His look horrified all the inhabitants of the Castle, who saw him pale as death tottering off supported by two officers. "None but a convicted criminal could possibly look so broken down. The consciousness of his treachery is stamped upon his countenance," remarked the court servant Bachmann, who had formerly ever numbered among the friends of the Counsellor. "I never saw such a picture of an evil conscience. Man is a weak creature," he said consolingly to Barbara who appeared weeping at the door, "and the Devil always tempts the best most severely."

"Alas, how can I break this to my young mistress," cried the old woman.

"Even the search through the house has nearly killed her."

CHAPTER VII.

As Lydia on that eventful day returned from her visit to Frau Belier, who had detained her rather longer than usual with her chattering, she found the old servant weeping in the ante-chamber. The Amtmann and a police officer were in her master's rooms, sobbed Barbara, opening all the drawers searching for papers in the writing desk and taking away whatever seemed good to them. Surprised and indignant Lydia entered the room and asked the Amtmann, what all this meant. Herr Hartmann comforted her with delicate compliments, which he later accompanied with vulgar familiarities. The angry girl pushed the blackguard from her as he attempted to stroke her cheeks, lisping something about the golden locks of Berenice. He however laughed mockingly: "We shall get to know each other better later on, my little dove will think better of all this. He, he, he. Be not so bashful, he, he, he." Lydia turned her back on him and went into the neighboring room to look for her father.

But the Magistrate followed her even there, regretting that he was compelled to examine her personal property. "Look wheresoever it pleases you," said the indignant girl. But he had already felt the pouch, hanging at her side. Angrily she jumped back but the gipsire remained in his hands. At that moment she remembered that Laurenzano's letter of a.s.signation was still in it. Alas! why had she not destroyed it sooner? With the courage of despair the frightened maiden threw herself on the impudent man endeavoring to regain her property, he however held the note high above his head and read it with malicious eagerness. "Ha! it is thus, on the Holtermann! The demure maiden will soon have to sing another tune," he said laughing mockingly, and whilst Lydia burst into tears, the scoundrel packed up the papers together and left the house. Lydia remained there thoroughly overwhelmed. In breathless anxiety, with beating heart she waited at her window to see her father on his return from his audience with the Prince. Only he could advise her in her distress, and compel the impudent official to return the letter. Every minute seemed an eternity. Finally after long hours of misery her father appeared at the gate of the new court. But how! Supported by two jailors, with a wild look and ruffled hair, almost a corpse. The terrified girl felt like throwing herself out of the window to reach her beloved father. She flew down the steps, to see him once again, before that he was torn away. Alas, even at the second landing she felt that she could never reach him. When she stood breathless in the court he had already disappeared. Loudly did she call her lost father's name, like a child astray in the woods. The neighbors looked out of their windows sympathizing with the weeping girl who had ever been a favorite in the castle. The stone figures above almost seemed to look down on her with pity. In her distress Felix appeared.

The artist at that moment seemed to her like some messenger from G.o.d.

In his arms was she able to shed her first soothing tears. "I will bring thy father back to thee," said Felix, "even if I must dig him out of the Tower with this dagger." Comforted she looked up at the strong bold man. But a hard hand was laid on her shoulder; Herr Hartmann ordered her to follow him to the Witches' Tower. "Whoever lays his hand on my affianced bride is a dead man," cried Felix, placing himself before Lydia in a determined manner; he had scarcely however made an attempt to draw his dagger, when he was knocked down on the stone pavement at the foot of the staircase. The cowardly Magistrate had wisely given the order, to watch the artist closely. A cunning blow from one of the officers felled Felix backwards down the steps, and when he again recovered his senses, he found himself near the well, with Bachmann and Barbara bathing a severe wound at the back of his head. "Where is Lydia?" asked the artist in a weak voice. Barbara wept and Bachmann answered for her: "Do not ask, no one ever returns from the place where she now is." Scarcely had Felix comprehended these words, than his entire consciousness and full strength returned. He ordered a damp cloth to be bound around his head, and went at once across the new court to lay his complaint before the Kurfurst. But the Page came back with the answer, he should apply to the Amtmann. He again prayed for admittance, not to complain of the injury done to himself, but to demand the restoration of his affianced bride; the officials refused however to announce him a second time, and on his endeavoring to force his way in, the sentries levelled their halberds at his breast. Dazed he returned back to the Burghof. He could do nothing however but storm ragingly in the ante-chamber in the presence of the Courtiers and the servants. He only met with disturbed faces, and heard half-uttered warnings, to be careful not to sympathize over much in a charge of witchcraft. In those moments, in which he found himself opposed to much cowardice and contemptible selfishness, he discovered in Frau Belier a faithful, brave, and prudent friend, who felt more than a lukewarm sympathy for Klytia. Having met with but deaf ears in the court, the young man hastened to the gable-house on the market-place. The Frenchwoman had e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a series of "_mon Dieu_, _mon Dieu_," on hearing Felix's account of what had taken place. When however in his rage the Italian declared that nothing was left for him to do but to stab the villainous Amtmann in the open street, she plucked the dagger out of his belt and locked it up in her cup-board, a.s.suring him that such a deed would be the most certain means of destroying Klytia. He listened unwillingly to the advice of the Chatterbox, who thus opposed all his plans. The screaming of the insupportable parrot, which the louder the talking became swung all the more contentedly on his ring, shrieking in shriller tones, put the young Maestro in such a rage, that he would willingly have killed it.

Frau Belier warned him most decidedly against making any attack; the only person who could aid in this matter was the Countess at the Stift Neuburg, and the brave little lady hastened thither. Felix however rushed out again with a dim impulse of rendering himself useful to his friends. Restlessly he walked around the Witches' Tower, near which he found excited groups, looking up at the windows, but none could tell him on which side Lydia had been imprisoned. The heartless remarks made by the people cut him to the quick. "Dost thou really take the pretty fair-haired creature to be a witch?" he heard a young man ask in a commiserating tone. "The Devil likes pretty girls and is not content with old hags like the herb-picker," was the coa.r.s.e answer. It was well, that Frau Belier had locked up his dagger, as otherwise he would have stabbed the man for this callous brutality. He asked an old man standing at his side, whether he believed that the young girl would be set at liberty.

"Ah! Sir," answered the old man. "I have now lived forty years opposite this Tower, and have never yet seen a prisoner come out of these doors except with racked limbs, and the most of them only on their way to the stake." When he saw how pale Felix grew and how his eyes rolled, he added, "My dear Sir, if you had been obliged, as I have been, to hear at night time the harrowing shrieks and dreadful moans of those being tortured, you would wish as I do, that those suspected should at once be burnt, for the idea, that perhaps an innocent person is being thus racked, is enough to drive one mad."

"And is there no help, none?" stammered Felix.

"If Lucifer himself, or the All-merciful G.o.d does not carry off the prisoners with the aid of His hosts through the air, none," said the old man, who with a "G.o.d bless you," returned to his house no longer able to continue a conversation on this dreadful subject.

"Through the air," stammered Felice looking up at the tower, he walked round it, he counted the windows. He believed it would be possible to climb into the Tower from the Garden of the Augustine convent without being noticed. He would thus from the upper rooms search cell after cell and run anyone through who prevented him from seeing Lydia. If he could not succeed in carrying her off, he would kill her first and then himself, or set the Tower on fire and perish in the flames in case they could not manage to escape in the confusion caused by the flames. After carefully considering the subject, he determined on a plan. An old chestnut tree at the back part of the Tower rendered it possible for an active and daring climber to reach a window, which he certainly could open. The way out must be down a rope ladder or with the help of a dagger. The young man was so lost in thought, that he did not notice that he was being watched. His plans for rescue could almost have been read on his face. Once it seemed to him, as if a man on the other side of the road stopped as if to address him. But looking across the individual turned his back. It was Pigavetta, Felix took no further notice. He hastily returned to his workshop in the Schloss, and after carefully examining his borers, chisels and saws, he set aside those which seemed to him to be the fittest, and then began to work at knotting together with trembling hand a rope ladder long enough to reach from the roof of the Witches' Tower to the ground.

In the meantime Frau Belier had hastened to the Stift Neuburg, and the news she brought caused not a little consternation to the Abbess as she sat in her dreary little room. "I shall immediately see the Kurfurst,"

said the old lady. "His grace will believe, that I know as well as this lewd Magistrate, whether a maiden who till lately was under the protection of these holy walls, is a child of light or espoused to the Devil. Oh! these _exercitia_, these _exercitia_," she added sighing, "they were the cause of all this misery."