Madame Puzzel had unfastened the metal clasp of her big black-hooded cloak and taken her spectacle case and knitting from her basket. She put on her spectacles, took up her knitting, sat down by the fire and began to knit. She wore a woollen flowered jacket under a black shawl, and a skirt of linsey-woolsey. From time to time she looked over her spectacles without raising her head and glanced at Riekje walking up and down the room groaning. When the pain became worse, Madame Puzzel tapped her on the cheek, and said:

"Be brave, Riekje. You cannot think what a joy it is to hear the little one cry for the first time. It is like eating vanilla cream in Paradise listening to beautiful violin music."

Tobias, having put back the big chest which served as a bed against the wall, went to fetch two sea-weed mattresses from his own bed, and, as he laid them on the chest, there was a healthy salt smell in the room.

Then Nelle covered the mattresses with spotless coa.r.s.e linen sheets, and smoothed them with the palm of her hand to take out the creases and make it as soft as a feather-bed. Towards midnight, Madame Puzzel folded up her knitting, placed her spectacles on the table, crossed her arms and looked into the fire; then she began to prepare the linen, made a hole in the pillows and looked at the time by the big silver watch which she wore under her jacket. Finally, she yawned six consecutive times and went to sleep with one eye open.

Riekje wrung her hands and cried out:

"Mamae Puzzel! Mamae Puzzel!"

"Mama Puzzel can do nothing for you, Riekje," replied the midwife. "You must be patient."

Within the room, the kettle sang on the fire; without, the water lapped against the boat. Voices died away along the banks, and doors were shut.

"It is midnight," said Tobias, "those are the people leaving the inn."

"Ah! Dolf! dear Dolf!" cried Riekje, each time. "Why does he not come back?"

"I see the lamps in the houses and boats being put out one by one. Dolf will be in directly," said Nelle to quiet her. But Dolf did not return.

Two hours after midnight Riekje was in such pain that she had to go to bed. Madame Puzzel sat beside her and Nelle told her beads. Two hours pa.s.sed thus.

"Dolf! Dolf!" Riekje cried incessantly. "Why does he stay away so long when his Riekje is dying?"

Tobias went up the ladder now and again to see if Dolf were not coming back. The little port-hole of the Guldenvisch reflected its red light on the dark water; there was no other window alight in the town. In the distance a church clock rang out the quarters, the chimes falling through the night like a flight of birds escaped from a cage. Tobias listened to the notes of the music which spoke of the son whom he awaited. Gradually the lights were relit one after another in the houses, and lamps twinkled like stars along the water's edge. A fresh cold dawn broke over the town. Then a little child began to cry in the boat, and it seemed to those who heard it sweet as the bleating of a lambkin.

"Riekje! Riekje!"

A distant voice called Riekje. It was Dolf who sprang over the bridge and rushed into the room. Riekje, who was asleep, opened her eyes and saw her loving lad kneeling beside her. Tobias threw his cap up in the air, and Nelle, laughing, pinched the face of the new-born babe whom Madame Puzzel swaddled on her knee. When the baby was well wrapped up, Madame Puzzel placed it in Dolf's arms and he kissed it cautiously with little smacks.

Riekje called Dolf to her side, took his head in her hand, and fell asleep until morning. Dolf put his head beside her on the pillow, and their breath and their hearts were as one during that sleep.

V.

Dolf went off into the town one morning.

Funeral bells were tolling, and their knell echoed through the air like the hoa.r.s.e cry of gulls and petrels above the shipwrecked.

A long procession disappeared through the church porch, and the altar draped in black shone with its many wax lights, which glistened as the tears in a widow's eyes.

"Who has died in the town?" Dolf asked of an old beggar sitting at the threshold of the church, his chin on his knees. "The son of a rich family, a man of property, Jacques Karnavash. Give a trifle for the repose of his soul."

Dolf took off his hat and entered the church.

He hid himself behind a pillar and saw the silver-nailed coffin disappear beneath the black catafalque.

"Lord G.o.d," he said, "may Thy will be done. Forgive him as I have forgiven him."

When the crowd made their taper-offering, he took a wax light from the chorister and followed those who walked round the branch candlesticks mighty as trees, which burned at the four corners of the pall.

Then he knelt down in the dark corner, far from the men and women who had come out of respect for the dead, and these words were mingled with his prayer:

"G.o.d, Father of men, forgive me also; I saved this man from drowning, but my courage failed when I first saw that it was my Riekje's seducer, and I desired vengeance. Then I pushed from me the man who had a mother, and whom I was to restore to that mother; I thrust him back under the water, before I saved him. Forgive me, O Lord, and if I must be punished for this, punish me only."

Then he left the church and thought deep down in his heart:

"Now there is no one living who can say that Riekje's child is not my child."

"Hey! Dolf," voices called to him from the quay.

He recognized those who had seen him bring Jacques Karnavash to the bank.

Their rude hearts had trembled for him like women's hearts; they had clung to him and said:

"Dolf, you are worth all of us put together."

Suddenly he had fallen on the pavement, but they had carried him near the kitchen fire of an inn, had revived him with gin and looked after him until he felt strong enough to run back to his beloved Riekje.

"Dolf," they now cried.

And when Dolf turned, the old boatman clasped him in his arms and said:

"My dear son, I love you as if you were my own flesh and blood."

The others pressed his hand heartily, saying:

"Dolf, we shall at least have known one really brave fellow before we die."

"As for me, comrades," said Dolf, laughing, "I shall not die before I drink a gla.s.s with you to the health of the fine little chap Riekje gave me the other night."

IN LOVE WITH THE CZARINA

BY

MAURICE JOKAI

From "In Love with the Czarina and other Stories." Translated by Louis Felbermann. Published by Frederick Warne & Co.