Kitabı oku: «Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 2», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XXV

His highness issued from the room in consternation, followed by many of the company. In the very centre of the ante-room, booted and spurred, bearing all the marks of extreme haste, panic, and confusion, stood a Swedish officer, dealing forth hasty fragments of some heart-shaking intelligence. "All is lost!" said he; "not a regiment has escaped!" "And the place?" exclaimed a press of inquirers. "Nordlingen." "And which way has the Swedish army retreated?" demanded a masque behind him.

"Retreat!" retorted the officer, "I tell you there is no retreat. All have perished. The army is no more. Horse, foot, artillery—all is wrecked, crushed, annihilated. Whatever yet lives is in the power of the imperialists."

At this moment the Landgrave came up, and in every way strove to check these too liberal communications. He frowned; the officer saw him not. He laid his hand on the officer's arm, but all in vain. He spoke, but the officer knew not, or forgot his rank. Panic and immeasurable sorrow had crushed his heart; he cared not for restraints; decorum and ceremony were become idle words. The Swedish army had perished. The greatest disaster of the whole 'Thirty Years' War had fallen upon his countrymen. His own eyes had witnessed the tragedy, and he had no power to check or restrain that which made his heart overflow.

The Landgrave retired. But in half an hour the banquet was announced; and his highness had so much command over his own feelings that he took his seat at the table. He seemed tranquil in the midst of general agitation; for the company were distracted by various passions. Some exulted in the great victory of the imperialists, and the approaching liberation of Klosterheim. Some, who were in the secret, anticipated with horror the coming tragedy of vengeance upon his enemies which the Landgrave had prepared for this night. Some were filled with suspense and awe on the probable fulfilment in some way or other, doubtful as to the mode, but tragic (it was not doubted) for the result, of The Masque's mysterious denunciation.

* * * * *

Under such circumstances of universal agitation and suspense,—for on one side or other it seemed inevitable that this night must produce a tragical catastrophe,—it was not extraordinary that silence and embarrassment should at one moment take possession of the company, and at another that kind of forced and intermitting gayety which still more forcibly proclaimed the trepidation which really mastered the spirits of the assemblage. The banquet was magnificent; but it moved heavily and in sadness. The music, which broke the silence at intervals, was animating and triumphant; but it had no power to disperse the gloom which hung over the evening, and which was gathering strength conspicuously as the hours advanced to midnight.

As the clock struck eleven, the orchestra had suddenly become silent; and, as no buzz of conversation succeeded, the anxiety of expectation became more painfully irritating. The whole vast assemblage was hushed, gazing at the doors, at each other, or watching, stealthily, the Landgrave's countenance. Suddenly a sound was heard in an ante-room; a page entered with a step hurried and discomposed, advanced to the Landgrave's seat, and, bending downwards, whispered some news or message to that prince, of which not a syllable could be caught by the company. Whatever were its import, it could not be collected, from any very marked change on the features of him to whom it was addressed, that he participated in the emotions of the messenger, which were obviously those of grief or panic—perhaps of both united. Some even fancied that a transient expression of malignant exultation crossed the Landgrave's countenance at this moment. But, if that were so, it was banished as suddenly; and, in the next instant, the prince arose with a leisurely motion; and, with a very successful affectation (if such it were) of extreme tranquillity, he moved forwards to one of the ante- rooms, in which, as it now appeared, some person was awaiting his presence.

Who, and on what errand? These were the questions which now racked the curiosity of those among the company who had least concern in the final event, and more painfully interested others, whose fate was consciously dependent upon the accidents which the next hour might happen to bring up. Silence still continuing to prevail, and, if possible, deeper silence than before, it was inevitable that all the company, those even whose honorable temper would least have brooked any settled purpose of surprising the Landgrave's secrets, should, in some measure, become a party to what was now passing in the ante-room.

The voice of the Landgrave was heard at times, briefly and somewhat sternly in reply, but apparently in the tone of one who is thrown upon the necessity of self-defence. On the other side, the speaker was earnest, solemn, and (as it seemed) upon an office of menace or upbraiding. For a time, however, the tones were low and subdued; but, as the passion of the scene advanced, less restraint was observed on both sides; and at length many believed that in the stranger's voice they recognized that of the lady abbess; and it was some corroboration of this conjecture, that the name of Paulina began now frequently to be caught, and in connection with ominous words, indicating some dreadful fate supposed to have befallen her.

A few moments dispersed all doubts. The tones of bitter and angry reproach rose louder than before; they were, without doubt, those of the abbess. She charged the blood of Paulina upon the Landgrave's head; denounced the instant vengeance of the emperor for so great an atrocity; and, if that could be evaded, bade him expect certain retribution from Heaven for so wanton and useless an effusion of innocent blood.

The Landgrave replied in a lower key; and his words were few and rapid. That they were words of fierce recrimination, was easily collected from the tone; and in the next minute the parties separated with little ceremony (as was sufficiently evident) on either side, and with mutual wrath. The Landgrave reentered the banqueting-room; his features discomposed and inflated with passion; but such was his self-command, and so habitual his dissimulation, that, by the time he reached his seat, all traces of agitation had disappeared; his countenance had resumed its usual expression of stern serenity, and his manners their usual air of perfect self-possession.

* * * * *

The clock of St. Agnes struck twelve. At that sound the Landgrave rose. "Friends and illustrious strangers!" said he, "I have caused one seat to be left empty for that blood-stained Masque, who summoned me to answer on this night for a crime which he could not name, at a bar which no man knows. His summons you heard. Its fulfilment is yet to come. But I suppose few of us are weak enough to expect—"

"That The Masque of Klosterheim will ever break his engagements," said a deep voice, suddenly interrupting the Landgrave. All eyes were directed to the sound; and, behold! there stood The Masque, and seated himself quietly in the chair which had been left vacant for his reception.

"It is well!" said the Landgrave; but the air of vexation and panic with which he sank back into his seat belied his words. Rising again, after a pause, with some agitation, he said, "Audacious criminal! since last we met, I have learned to know you, and to appreciate your purposes. It is now fit they should be known to Klosterheim. A scene of justice awaits you at present, which will teach this city to understand the delusions which could build any part of her hopes upon yourself. Citizens and friends, not I, but these dark criminals and interlopers whom you will presently see revealed in their true colors, are answerable for that interruption to the course of our peaceful festivities, which will presently be brought before you. Not I, but they are responsible."

So saying, the Landgrave arose, and the whole of the immense audience, who now resumed their masques, and prepared to follow whither his highness should lead. With the haste of one who fears he may be anticipated in his purpose, and the fury of some bird of prey, apprehending that his struggling victim may be yet torn from his talons, the prince hurried onwards to the ante-chapel. Innumerable torches now illuminated its darkness; in other respects it remained as St. Aldenheim had left it.

The Swedish masques had many of them withdrawn from the gala on hearing the dreadful day of Nordlingen. But enough remained, when strengthened by the body-guard of the Landgrave, to make up a corps of nearly five hundred men. Under the command of Colonel von Aremberg, part of them now enclosed the scaffold, and part prepared to seize the persons who were pointed out to them as conspirators. Amongst these stood foremost The Masque.

Shaking off those who attempted to lay hands upon him, he strode disdainfully within the ring; and then, turning to the Landgrave, he said—

"Prince, for once be generous; accept me as a ransom for the rest."

The Landgrave smiled sarcastically. "That were an unequal bargain, methinks, to take a part in exchange for the whole."

"The whole? And where is, then, your assurance of the whole?"

"Who should now make it doubtful? There is the block; the headsman is at hand. What hand can deliver from this extremity even you, Sir Masque?"

"That which has many times delivered me from a greater. It seems, prince, that you forget the last days in the history of Klosterheim. He that rules by night in Klosterheim may well expect a greater favor than this when he descends to sue for it."

The Landgrave smiled contemptuously. "But, again I ask you, sir, will you on any terms grant immunity to these young men?"

"You sue as vainly for others as you would do for yourself."

"Then all grace is hopeless?" The Landgrave vouchsafed no answer, but made signals to Von Aremberg.

"Gentlemen, cavaliers, citizens of Klosterheim, you that are not involved in the Landgrave's suspicions," said The Masque, appealingly, "will you not join me in the intercession I offer for these young friends, who are else to perish unjudged, by blank edict of martial law?"

The citizens of Klosterheim interceded with ineffectual supplication. "Gentlemen, you waste your breath; they die without reprieve," replied the Landgrave.

"Will your highness spare none?"

"Not one," he exclaimed, angrily,—"not the youngest amongst them."

"Nor grant a day's respite to him who may appear, on examination, the least criminal of the whole?"

"A day's respite? No, nor half an hour's. Headsman, be ready. Soldiers, lay the heads of the prisoners ready for the axe."

"Detested prince, now look to your own!"

With a succession of passions flying over his face,—rage, disdain, suspicion,—the Landgrave looked round upon The Masque as he uttered these words, and, with pallid, ghastly consternation, beheld him raise to his lips a hunting-horn which depended from his neck. He blew a blast, which was immediately answered from within. Silence as of the grave ensued. All eyes were turned in the direction of the answer. Expectation was at its summit; and in less than a minute solemnly uprose the curtain, which divided the chapel from the ante-chapel, revealing a scene that smote many hearts with awe, and the consciences of some with as much horror as if it had really been that final tribunal which numbers believed The Masque to have denounced.

CHAPTER XXVI

The great chapel of St. Agnes, the immemorial hall of coronation for the Landgraves of X——, was capable of containing with ease from seven to eight thousand spectators. Nearly that number was now collected in the galleries, which, on the recurrence of that great occasion, or of a royal marriage, were usually assigned to the spectators. These were all equipped in burnished arms, the very élite of the imperial army. Resistance was hopeless; in a single moment the Landgrave saw himself dispossessed of all his hopes by an overwhelming force; the advanced guard, in fact, of the victorious imperialists, now fresh from Nordlingen.

On the marble area of the chapel, level with their own position, were arranged "a brilliant staff of officers; and, a little in advance of them, so as almost to reach the ante-chapel, stood the imperial legate or ambassador. This nobleman advanced to the crowd of Klosterheimers, and spoke thus:

"Citizens of Klosterheim, I bring you from the emperor your true and lawful Landgrave, Maximilian, son of your last beloved prince."

Both chapels resounded with acclamations; and the troops presented arms.

"Show us our prince! let us pay him our homage!" echoed from every mouth.

"This is mere treason!" exclaimed the usurper. "The emperor invites treason against his own throne, who undermines that of other princes. The late Landgrave had no son; so much is known to you all."

"None that was known to his murderer," replied The Masque, "else had he met no better fate than his unhappy father."

"Murderer! And what art thou, blood-polluted Masque, with hands yet reeking from the blood of all who refused to join the conspiracy against your lawful prince?"

"Citizens of Klosterheim," said the legate, "first let the emperor's friend be assoiled from all injurious thoughts. Those whom ye believe to have been removed by murder are here to speak for themselves."

Upon this the whole line of those who had mysteriously disappeared from Klosterheim presented themselves to the welcome of their astonished friends.

"These," said the legate, "quitted Klosterheim, even by the same secret passages which enabled us to enter it, and for the self-same purpose,— to prepare the path for the restoration of the true heir, Maximilian the Fourth, whom in this noble prince you behold, and whom may God long preserve!"

Saying this, to the wonder of the whole assembly, he led forward The Masque, whom nobody had yet suspected for more than an agent of the true heir.

The Landgrave, meantime, thus suddenly denounced as a tyrant, usurper, murderer, had stood aloof, and had given but a slight attention to the latter words of the legate. A race of passions had traversed his countenance, chasing each other in flying succession. But by a prodigious effort he recalled himself to the scene before him; and, striding up to the crowd, of which the legate was the central figure, he raised his arm with a gesture of indignation, and protested vehemently that the assassination of Maximilian's father had been iniquitously charged upon himself.—"And yet," said he, "upon that one gratuitous assumption have been built all the other foul suspicions directed against my person."

"Pardon me, sir," replied the legate, "the evidences were such as satisfied the emperor and his council; and he showed it by the vigilance with which he watched over the Prince Maximilian, and the anxiety with which he kept him from approaching your highness, until his pretensions could be established by arms. But, if more direct evidence were wanting, since yesterday we have had it in the dying confession of the very agent employed to strike the fatal blow. That man died last night, penitent and contrite, having fully unburdened his conscience, at Waldenhausen. With evidence so overwhelming, the emperor exacts no further sacrifice from your highness than that of retirement from public life, to any one of your own castles in your patrimonial principality of Oberhornstein.—But, now for a more pleasing duty. Citizens of Klosterheim, welcome your young Landgrave in the emperor's name: and to-morrow you shall welcome also your future Landgravine, the lovely Countess Paulina, cousin to the emperor, my master, and cousin also to your noble young Landgrave."

"No!" exclaimed the malignant usurper, "her you shall never see alive; for that, be well assured, I have taken care."

"Vile, unworthy prince!" replied Maximilian, his eyes kindling with passion, "know that your intentions, so worthy of a fiend, towards that most innocent of ladies, have been confounded and brought to nothing by your own gentle daughter, worthy of a far nobler father."

"If you speak of my directions for administering the torture,—a matter in which I presume that I exercised no unusual privilege amongst German sovereigns,—you are right. But it was not that of which I spoke."

"Of what else, then?—The Lady Paulina has escaped."

"True, to Falkenberg. But, doubtless, young Landgrave, you have heard of such a thing as the intercepting of a fugitive prisoner; in such a case, you know the punishment which martial law awards. The governor at Falkenberg had his orders." These last significant words he uttered in a tone of peculiar meaning. His eye sparkled with bright gleams of malice and of savage vengeance, rioting in its completion.

"O, heart—heart!" exclaimed Maximilian, "can this be possible?"

The imperial legate and all present crowded around him to suggest such consolation as they could. Some offered to ride off express to Falkenberg; some argued that the Lady Paulina had been seen within the last hour. But the hellish exulter in ruined happiness destroyed that hope as soon as it dawned.

"Children!" said he, "foolish children! cherish not such chimeras. Me you have destroyed, Landgrave, and the prospects of my house. Now perish yourself.—Look there: is that the form of one who lives and breathes?"

All present turned to the scaffold, in which direction he pointed, and now first remarked, covered with a black pall, and brought hither doubtless to aggravate the pangs of death to Maximilian, what seemed but too certainly a female corpse. The stature, the fine swell of the bust, the rich outline of the form, all pointed to the same conclusion; and, in this recumbent attitude, it seemed but too clearly to present the magnificent proportions of Paulina.

There was a dead silence. Who could endure to break it? Who make the effort which was forever to fix the fate of Maximilian?

He himself could not. At last the deposed usurper, craving for the consummation of his vengeance, himself strode forward; with one savage grasp he tore away the pall, and below it lay the innocent features, sleeping in her last tranquil slumber, of his own gentle-minded daughter!

* * * * *

No heart was found savage enough to exult; the sorrow even of such a father was sacred. Death, and through his own orders, had struck the only being whom he had ever loved; and the petrific mace of the fell destroyer seemed to have smitten his own heart, and withered its hopes forever.

Everybody comprehended the mistake in a moment. Paulina had lingered at Waldenhausen under the protection of an imperial corps, which she had met in her flight. The tyrant, who had heard of her escape, but apprehended no necessity for such a step on the part of his daughter, had issued sudden orders to the officer commanding the military post at Falkenberg, to seize and shoot the female prisoner escaping from confinement, without allowing any explanations whatsoever, on her arrival at Falkenberg. This precaution he had adopted in part to intercept any denunciation of the emperor's vengeance which Paulina might address to the officer. As a rude soldier, accustomed to obey the letter of his orders, this commandant had executed his commission; and the gentle Adeline, who had naturally hastened to the protection of her father's chateau, surrendered her breath meekly and with resignation to what she believed a simple act of military violence; and this she did before she could know a syllable of her father's guilt or his fall, and without any the least reason for supposing him connected with the occasion of her early death.

At this moment Paulina made her appearance unexpectedly, to reassure the young Landgrave by her presence, and to weep over her young friend, whom she had lost almost before she had come to know her. The scaffold, the corpse, and the other images of sorrow, were then withdrawn; seven thousand imperial troops presented arms to the youthful Landgrave and the future Landgravine, the brilliant favorites of the emperor; the immense area of St. Agnes resounded with the congratulations of Klosterheim; and as the magnificent cortege moved off to the interior of the schloss, the swell of the coronation anthem rising in peals upon the ear from the choir of St. Agnes, and from the military bands of the imperial troops, awoke the promise of happier days, and of more equitable government, to the long-harassed inhabitants of Klosterheim.

* * * * *

The Klosterheimers knew enough already, personally or by questions easily answered in every quarter, to supply any links which were wanting in the rapid explanations of the legate. Nevertheless, that nothing might remain liable to misapprehension or cavil, a short manifesto was this night circulated by the new government, from which the following facts are abstracted:

The last rightful Landgrave, whilst yet a young man, had been assassinated in the forest when hunting. A year or two before this catastrophe he had contracted what, from the circumstances, was presumed, at the time, to be a morganatic or left-handed marriage, with a lady of high birth, nearly connected with the imperial house. The effect of such a marriage went to incapacitate the children who might be born under it, male or female, from succeeding. On that account, as well as because current report had represented her as childless, the widow lady escaped all attempts from the assassin. Meantime this lady, who was no other than Sister Madeline, had been thus indebted for her safety to two rumors, which were in fact equally false. She soon found means of convincing the emperor, who had been the bosom friend of her princely husband, that her marriage was a perfect one, and conferred the fullest rights of succession upon her infant son Maximilian, whom at the earliest age, and with the utmost secrecy, she had committed to the care of his imperial majesty. This powerful guardian had in every way watched over the interests of the young prince. But the Thirty Years' War had thrown all Germany into distractions, which for a time thwarted the emperor, and favored the views of the usurper. Latterly, also, another question had arisen on the city and dependences of Klosterheim, as distinct from the Landgraviate. These, it was now affirmed, were a female appanage, and could only pass back to the Landgraves of X—— through a marriage with the female inheretrix. To reconcile all claims, therefore, on finding this bar in the way, the emperor had resolved to promote a marriage for Maximilian with Paulina, who stood equally related to the imperial house and to that of her lover. In this view he had despatched Paulina to Klosterheim, with proper documents to support the claims of both parties. Of these documents she had been robbed at Waldenhausen; and the very letter which was designed to introduce Maximilian as "the child and sole representative of the late murdered Landgrave," falling in this surreptitious way into the usurper's hand, had naturally misdirected his attacks to the person of Paulina.

For the rest, as regarded the mysterious movements of The Masque, these were easily explained. Fear, and the exaggerations of fear, had done one half the work to his hands, by preparing people to fall easy dupes to the plans laid, and by increasing the romantic wonders of his achievements. Coöperation, also, on the part of the very students and others, who stood forward as the night-watch for detecting him, had served The Masque no less powerfully. The appearances of deadly struggles had been arranged artificially to countenance the plot and to aid the terror. Finally, the secret passages which communicated between the forest and the chapel of St. Agnes (passages of which many were actually applied to that very use in the Thirty Years' War) had been unreservedly placed at their disposal by the lady abbess, an early friend of the unhappy Landgravine, who sympathized deeply with that lady's unmerited sufferings.

One other explanation followed, communicated in a letter from Maximilian to the legate; this related to the murder of the old seneschal,—a matter in which the young prince took some blame to himself, as having unintentionally drawn upon that excellent servant his unhappy fate. "The seneschal," said the writer, "was the faithful friend of my family, and knew the whole course of its misfortunes. He continued his abode at the schloss, to serve my interest; and in some measure I may fear that I drew upon him his fate. Traversing late one evening a suite of rooms, which his assistance and my own mysterious disguise laid open to my passage at all hours, I came suddenly upon the prince's retirement. He pursued me, but with hesitation. Some check I gave to his motions by halting before a portrait of my unhappy father, and emphatically pointing his attention to it. Conscience, I well knew, would supply a commentary to my act. I produced the impression which I had anticipated, but not so strongly as to stop his pursuit. My course necessarily drew him into the seneschal's room. The old man was sleeping; and this accident threw into the prince's hands a paper, which, I have reason to think, shed some considerable light upon my own pretensions, and, in fact, first made my enemy acquainted with my existence and my claims. Meantime, the seneschal had secured the prince's vengeance upon himself. He was now known as a faithful agent in my service. That fact signed his death- warrant. There is a window in a gallery which commands the interior of the seneschal's room. On the evening of the last fęte, waiting there for an opportunity of speaking securely with this faithful servant, I heard a deep groan, and then another, and another; I raised myself, and, with an ejaculation of horror, looked down upon the murderer, then surveying his victim with hellish triumph. My loud exclamation drew the murderer's eye upwards: under the pangs of an agitated conscience, I have reason to think that he took me for my unhappy father, who perished at my age, and is said to have resembled me closely. Who that murderer was, I need not say more directly. He fled with the terror of one who flies from an apparition. Taking a lesson from this incident, on that same night, by the very same sudden revelation of what passed, no doubt, for my father's countenance, aided by my mysterious character, and the proof I had announced to him immediately before my acquaintance with the secret of the seneschal's murder, in this and no other way it was that I produced that powerful impression upon the prince which terminated the festivities of that evening, and which all Klosterheim witnessed. If not, it is for the prince to explain in what other way I did or could affect him so powerfully."

This explanation of the else unaccountable horror manifested by the ex- Landgrave on the sudden exposure of The Masque's features, received a remarkable confirmation from the confession of the miserable assassin at Waldenhausen. This man's illness had been first brought on by the sudden shock of a situation pretty nearly the same, acting on a conscience more disturbed, and a more superstitious mind. In the very act of attempting to assassinate or rob Maximilian, he had been suddenly dragged by that prince into a dazzling light; and this settling full upon features which too vividly recalled to the murderer's recollection the last unhappy Landgrave, at the very same period of blooming manhood, and in his own favorite hunting palace, not far from which the murder had been perpetrated, naturally enough had for a time unsettled the guilty man's understanding, and, terminating in a nervous fever, had at length produced his penitential death.

A death, happily of the same character, soon overtook the deposed Landgrave. He was laid by the side of his daughter, whose memory, as much even as his own penitence, availed to gather round his final resting-place the forgiving thoughts even of those who had suffered most from his crimes. Klosterheim in the next age flourished greatly, being one of those cities which benefited by the peace of Westphalia. Many changes took place in consequence, greatly affecting the architectural character of the town and its picturesque antiquities; but, amidst all revolutions of this nature, the secret passages still survive, and to this day are shown occasionally to strangers of rank and consideration, by which, more than by any other of the advantages at his disposal, The Masque of Klosterheim was enabled to replace himself in his patrimonial rights, and at the same time to liberate from a growing oppression his own compatriots and subjects.