CHAPTER XXV.

The pa.s.sage to the island was unusually long that day. A strong head-wind had sprung up; the boat was overloaded with pa.s.sengers and horses, and they were obliged to tack, cautiously. Conversation among the pa.s.sengers, most of whom were land-owners and farmers on the island, turned almost exclusively upon the races which were to take place in a few days, and would be the most brilliant ones that had ever been seen. Horses were to come from Silesia, and even Hungary; Prince Prora would probably have taken part in them himself, if he had been admitted. The great public prize was increased to a thousand thalers, but the princ.i.p.al race would be the one between the gentlemen riders.

It had at first been supposed that not three of the twenty-four horses registered would appear, since even in May, six, from fear of Herr Brandow's Brownlock, had already paid the forfeit for failing to fulfil their contract; but now the tables were turned, now all wanted to be allowed a place, for it was notorious that Brownlock could not cross the marsh, and then he would be obliged to give up the lead to go round it, and could not recover it again, since there was only one very slight impediment between the bog and the winning-post, and on a free course the other horses could easily cope with him.

So the men, putting their heads together, talked eagerly among themselves, while rain and spray dashed over their broad shoulders, and Gotthold pondered over the letter he carried in his pocket. "Brownlock can't cross the bog, Brandow says so himself;" he had another motive for saying so besides that of stimulating his opponent's desire to bet, as one of the speakers had suggested.

At last the boat reached the opposite sh.o.r.e. Gotthold hurried to the inn to get a carriage to take him to Prora. Herr Peter's three carriages were all away, but one would soon return, nay, ought to have been back now; but he could not depend upon the grooms; the only reliable one he had ever had got married about three weeks ago, one Jochen Prebrow from Dollan, that is, not the estate, but the smithy, near which the accident had lately happened of which the gentleman had probably heard.

"Why, good gracious!" exclaimed Herr Peters, "it's you yourself. I should hardly have known you. You look much paler and thinner than you did three weeks ago, when you pa.s.sed through here with the Herr a.s.sessor and Herr Wollnow. I was talking the matter over with Herr Brandow a few hours ago. It's a pity you missed the twelve o'clock boat, or you might have gone on with Herr Brandow, who always has his own horses here to meet him. There is no trace of Hinrich Scheel yet; no doubt the fellow has been on his way to America for the last three weeks."

Herr Peters was now obliged to attend to his other guests, whose tall, broad figures crowded the large coffee-room. Gotthold had already seen curious glances directed towards him; probably Herr Peters had pointed him out as the hero of the accident on Dollan moor, which had caused a great deal of talk on, its own account, and now that Brandow's name was in every mouth, was more discussed than ever. So he left the room, which reeked with tobacco-smoke, and wandered about in the pouring rain, until at last, after an hour of impatient waiting, the promised carriage arrived--an old rickety chaise, to which fortunately a pair of fresh horses was harnessed. Herr Peters came out to take leave of him, and say that in consequence of the great demand, he could not have the carriage at the usual price. Gotthold consented to the shameless extortion, and would have given even more to get on.

"I saw what was in the wind at once," said Herr Peters to his guests; "Brandow two hours ago, and now he. Mark my words; they are after Scheel."

"Nonsense," said a fat farmer; "he's gone where the pepper grows long ago."

"I think he has taken his life," observed another.

"Or had it taken," growled a third.

They again put their heads together, even more eagerly than before.

That Hinrich Scheel had not reaped the fruits of his crime alone, nay, possibly, had been wholly cheated out of them, was an opinion which had obtained a firm hold upon the public mind, although the rumor had not a.s.sumed a definite form. This time also people either could not or would not mention any names; on the contrary, the affair grew darker and darker the longer they talked it over, and the more frequently the thick little gla.s.ses filled with a greenish liquid were emptied. Herr Peters looked on well satisfied; it might be doubtful which of the disputants would first call for a bowl of his famous mulled wine; but that the call would be made within the next five minutes was perfectly certain. Herr Peters had already made a signal through the little window that opened into the kitchen to his daughter, who was standing by the hearth.

Meantime Gotthold drove on through the pouring rain, which shrouded the whole landscape in a gray veil that grew denser and denser hour by hour. The wind whistled through the c.h.i.n.ks in the leathern curtains, which had been b.u.t.toned down to protect the occupants of the chaise from the storm; the crazy old vehicle creaked and groaned whenever--which happened only too often--the wheels on the right or left slipped into the holes of the rough road; but the horses were powerful, and the driver, who expected a liberal fee, was willing, so it rolled forward with tolerable speed, although by no means rapidly enough to suit Gotthold's increasing impatience.

Yet he was compelled to acknowledge to himself, and did so again and again, that there was no sensible reason for his haste, that nothing depended upon one hour more or less, nay, that another hour, which might perhaps mature some definite resolution in his mind, would be welcome. Yet, even while he said so, he leaned forward to shout to the driver that the road was perfectly smooth here, and he might drive faster.

Then he leaned back again into the corner of his little damp prison, drew out Wollnow's letter and gazed at it as if he could not believe any one could write such words as those in a hand so firm, characters so large and clear. And for the second time he read:

"What I have to tell you to-day, my dear friend, is so bad that the most skilful preamble would not make it better. So without any introduction: the upsetting of the carriage on the moor was no unlucky accident, but a shameful crime, of which Brandow was the instigator.

Secondly, the money was stolen. The originator of the theft, which might be termed murder, was Brandow again; he was probably present at the time, or else appeared on the scene directly after; at any rate, the fruits of the robbery fell into his hands. Whether the two crimes may to a certain extent be considered one--I mean whether the first was committed that the second might be executed, or whether the second was perpetrated on the spur of the moment, after the first had been performed--I do not know, and probably no one ever will, since it is to be feared that a third terrible crime has resulted from the first two.

"Who betrayed this horror to me? That which is so often the betrayer of crimes--chance.

"A chance than which nothing could be more accidental.

"The money in the packet consisted of hundred, fifty, and twenty-five thaler notes. I had myself, as you know, counted and put up the amount; but of course that would not enable me to positively swear to the ident.i.ty of any one of the bills, even if it came back to me again.

With one, however, I am in a position to do so; the note is once more in my hands, and I can prove in whose possession it has been in the mean time.

"I was obliged to pay out this bill ten years ago at a very critical time--it was the last money I possessed, and in a humorous freak I marked on it the words, 'a lucky journey,' and the date in small, almost microscopical characters, on the upper right-hand corner of its face. Four years ago this same note came back to me. I honored my old friend with the word 'welcome,' which, together with the date, I wrote on the left-hand upper corner of the back, and gave it, as a luck-penny, a place in my pocket-book, where it remained until three weeks ago. You will remember that ready money was rather scarce with me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to punish myself for my superst.i.tious feelings by adding this note to the rest.

"Now, this bill, to whose ident.i.ty I can swear, Herr Redebas received from Brandow on the day after the accident, as a part of the gambling debt due that afternoon; he left the money in his desk without touching it, until he made me a payment yesterday in which was this very note. I asked Herr Redebas--without telling him my reasons--whether he could swear to this statement if necessary; he answered in some little astonishment, but very positively, that he was ready to do so at any moment.

"Brandow, as is well known, had related here and there, that is, had intentionally spread the report, that the five thousand thalers he paid Herr Redebas at noon had been received in the morning from Jacob Demminer, a produce dealer in this place, as part payment on account of the seven thousand for which he had sold his wheat to him. This statement had nothing improbable in and of itself, and as Jacob Demminer bears the reputation of doing any business by which money can be made, even that of a receiver of stolen goods, there was certainly the shadow of a possibility that the master had received in the morning, in payment for his wheat, the very money of which the man had robbed our friend the night before, and thought he had placed in safety with the worthy Jacob, with whom he had perhaps had business dealings for a long time. I say, there is the shadow of a possibility, for the time was rather short; still, we do not yet know where and how Hinrich Scheel spent the rest of the night, so it might have been.

"The worthy Jacob, however, had not this affair at least on his conscience, but the business Brandow wished to transact with him did not take place either. To be sure Brandow was here that morning, and also in the dark hole Jacob calls his counting-room; he took money away with him, too, but only two thousand thalers, and not for this year's wheat, which he had sold to Jacob months before, but for the next year's harvest. He was obliged to sell at any price, in order to be able to show the money at this time, and he could name any sum without fearing that the worthy Jacob would contradict a customer with whom he did such profitable business. The discovery of this trick was also effected by chance, in the person of a poor young Jew, who had worked several years for the worthy Jacob, and gained his confidence, until now his conscience, or I know not what, suddenly urged him to pour out his heart to me, and implore me to save him from this den of crime.

"Let us recapitulate. Brandow, who on the day of the accident was known to be dest.i.tute of money, and received only two thousand thalers the following morning, pays Herr Redebas, at noon, five thousand at one stroke; and among this money is the hundred-thaler note which was in the package that disappeared at the time of the accident.

"Disappeared! Why not lost, found, but not restored to its owner?

"Then it would still have been stolen. But from the beginning it was both a theft and robbery.

"Remember that you felt the package in the a.s.sessor's coat-pocket after you left Dollan; that you no longer felt it at the smithy, and yet the coat you had b.u.t.toned was still fastened. This, to be sure, is no positive proof--nay, the latter circ.u.mstance at first even seems to be against my supposition. Why, it might be said, should a thief so cunning in all other respects intentionally incur an additional risk?

But people may try to be too cunning; and it certainly was not known that you had kept your eye on the package all the evening, and afterwards, when you b.u.t.toned the a.s.sessor's coat, even had it under your hand. The defender of the accused will, of course, doubt the correctness of this statement, will--but we are not in a court of justice. To me the fact is plain: the a.s.sessor had the money with him at the time of the fall; afterwards, when the two Prebrows raised the poor fellow, while Henrich Scheel stood by with the lantern, he no longer had it--that is, it had been stolen during the interval.

"By whom?

"Undoubtedly by this very Hinrich Scheel, but very, very probably not by him alone.

"Can Brandow have been present at the time?

"He has taken no little trouble to prove his alibi, even before any proof was asked, and evidently began the affair cunningly enough. He rode here by the way of Neuenhof, Lankenitz, and Faschwitz--that is a fact; the people in the villages heard him dash through; he even took time to talk to several persons he met. If he rode the whole way he cannot have been present at the time the deed was committed; even the best rider on the fastest horse could not do that. But suppose he did not ride the whole way--suppose he turned into the road just above Neuenhof--suppose the spectral horseman whom you saw in your vision dashing across the mora.s.s had been a veritable rider of flesh and blood, and this rider had been Carl Brandow.

"You say that is impossible. What is impossible to a man pursued by the furies, if he has a horse under him like the much-praised Brownlock?

"Brandow rode Brownlock that night; the groom at the Furstenhof swore it, after he saw the racer, day before yesterday, on his way to Sundin.

And when a man like Brandow rides a horse which in itself represents a small fortune, and on which, moreover, he has bet thousands, on such a night, over such roads, at such a pace, he must have been in a great hurry.

"He must have been in a very great hurry, or, my dear friend, you would not have escaped with your life; you certainly would not have been spared. A man whom people dash headlong over a precipice sixty feet high they silence entirely, if they are not in too great a hurry.

"Yet, as I said before, this will probably remain a mystery, even to a wiser judge than Justizrath von Zadenig. One of those who were there will never betray it, and the other can no longer do so.

"As I returned from B. I met Brandow; he may easily have learned from my coachman that I had been talking to the Justizrath for an hour. He rode towards home at full gallop; an hour after the lawyer arrived with the gendarme, but did not find Hinrich Scheel, although people had seen him about all the forenoon; and he even took his master's horse when he came home. The master was very, very anxious that the missing man should be found; he even directed the search himself; he--"

"I will not protract this horrible supposition farther; it is the only one which occurs in my story, all the others are facts--facts which cry aloud to heaven--which ought not, must not remain unpunished. I know, my dearest friend, you'll think as I do, though every fibre of your heart must quiver at the thought that you--you--

"I shall come to Sundin with my wife day after to-morrow. We will then discuss, not what is to be done--there can be no doubt about that; but the how is certainly to be considered."

Gotthold put the letter back in his pocket, and gazed out into the cheerless, rain-blurred landscape so fixedly, that he scarcely heard a carriage, which, coming from Prora, pa.s.sed by on the other side of the road. It was still a half hour's ride to Prora, but it seemed an eternity to the impatient traveller. At last the carriage stopped before Wollnow's house.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"I am so sorry to have you go," said Ottilie; "my husband must certainly return before evening. He will be very angry with me for not keeping you. And then, confess it frankly, my dear friend, you are going without any definite plan--any fixed purpose--and in this way intend to meet a man like Brandow--that is, to lose the game before it is begun."

Ottilie had seized Gotthold's hands as if to draw him back from the door into the room. Gotthold shook his head.

"You are right," said he, "but there are cases where the one who is not right, or at least cannot prove that he is, must act according to his own opinions. That is my case. I cannot put Brandow in prison or drag him to the scaffold; I can't--"

"Even if he must otherwise still remain Cecilia's husband? You cannot permit that either."

"Certainly not, and therefore a third plan must be found."