Chapter XXVI: A Mortal Agony

The broad, forest-like park of the castle of S. lay bathed in the clearest moonlight and enveloped in the deepest silence, interrupted only now and then by the heavy tread of the patrols, who at the captain's order were pacing up and down. They had finished their round through the principal avenue, without encountering any suspicious person, and had now separated according to the orders given them, to explore the adjoining thickets and pathways. Frederic took the left, the other two the right, and they were to meet again on the terrace.

Slowly, his musket in hand, Frederic marched forward on the designated way. He needed not to hasten; there was plenty of time; nor to step lightly, a thing always exceedingly difficult for him; he had as before stated, met nothing suspicious on his round. Frederic was not fitted for any service demanding great intelligence, but he perfectly understood and would conscientiously execute the command to keep his eyes and ears open, to hold the strictest watch possible over all around, and at the slightest disturbance, hasten back to the castle to give the alarm. This responsible service had one great advantage for Frederic; it demanded his strictest attention, and left him no time for unavailing regrets over his master's absence, or troubled apprehensions as to his fate.

He had gone over a part of his beat, and was now close by the statue of Flora, which reared its white, moon-lighted form in the midst of a broad, grassy expanse. It had been particularly impressed upon him not to pass the shell-covered grotto near by without throwing a sharp glance within. Just as he reached the statue, he paused, and placed his hand on the lock of his musket. But he lowered the weapon even before a cry of alarm had broken from his lips. A long, white dress, beneath a dark travelling cloak, had betrayed a woman's form looming up behind the shrubbery; and as the figure now stepped out into the full moonlight, he recognized Miss Forest.

Frederic's earlier suspicion began to rise stronger than ever; he still clung obstinately to the idea that the strangers were spies, and that the "American Miss" was the most dangerous of the three. Her being a woman was nothing in her favor; no man could excel her in cleverness, and this strange, solitary meeting, gave new ground for Frederic's suspicion.

"What are you doing here in the park, Miss Forest?" he asked mistrustfully. "You should be more on your guard. Our password must be unknown to you, and if it had not been for your dress, I should have shot you."

Jane paid no heed to the warning; she stepped still nearer, and stood close before him. "Is it you, Frederic? Thank God that I have at least, found _you_!" she said.

Frederic was little inclined to echo this "thank God!" in the ardor of his military duty, he might have repelled her roughly, but remembrance of the words of his master fettered his tongue, and made every harsh tone impossible.

"Go back, Miss!" he said. "You must not remain here, and I cannot allow you to wander around in this way."

Jane seemed to regard the command as little as the threat that had preceded it. "You have looked through the park?" she said excitedly. "Have you not met Mr. Alison?"

Frederic's suspicion grew. Mr. Alison! What business had he here? Was this whole American crew roaming around the park? Something serious must lie at the bottom of all this.

"Mr. Alison is not here!" he said very decidedly. "We have gone our rounds through the park, and if he had been here, we must have seen him."

A sudden terror blanched Jane's face. "Almighty God! I came too late. He must already have found a path!" she cried despairingly. But this was no time to yield to despair, and meeting Frederic had already kindled a new ray of hope in her soul.

"Do you know where your master is gone?" she asked resolutely.

"No, I do not know," replied Frederic crabbedly; "but I tell you now in full earnest, Miss--"

"He is in the mountains," interrupted Jane. "I must go there at once; I must follow him."

Frederic stared at her in utter consternation. "God help me, Miss," he said, "but I believe you have lost your reason! Would you go to the mountains? Among the sharpshooters? You may as well make yourself content, you certainly cannot pass our lines: they are well guarded."

"I know it!" said Jane, "but yet I must go. They will order me back, but you, Frederic, know the pass-word, and must help me through the outposts."

In the excess of his horror, Frederic almost let his musket fall; but he drew himself bolt upright and with an expression of righteous indignation and boundless self-importance, he gazed down upon the young lady.

"Miss Forest," he said very emphatically, "anybody would know you come from that savage, godless America. Such wickedness would never enter the mind of a German Christian man or woman. I must help you through the outposts? Through _our_ outposts? And to crown all, I am to give you the pass--word! You surely have no idea of war, or of what a soldier's duty really is!"

Jane stepped nearer to him and her voice sank to a low whisper.

"The life of your master is at stake; listen Frederic,--_your master_! A danger threatens him which does not come from the enemy, of which he has no suspicion, and which I alone know. He is lost, if I do not succeed in warning him. Do you understand now that I must go to him at any price?"

A quiver of pain passed over the soldier's face. "I thought as much!" he cried despairingly. "I knew that something dreadful would happen to-night!"

"There will be no dreadful event," said Jane confidently, "if I can only reach your master in season; and I can reach him, if you make it possible for me to follow him. You now know how much is at stake, Frederic; you will help me, will you not?"

Frederic shook his head. "I must not!" he said in a hollow voice.

In despairing entreaty, Jane grasped both his hands. "But I tell you, the life of your master is in peril; without my warning, he is lost! Will you let him die when a single word from you can save him? Good Heavens! Frederic, you must see that here is no treachery, no deception; that only a mortal agony for him alone urges me on. By your love for your master I implore you, help me through the lines!"

Frederic gazed silently down upon her; he saw and felt the truth of her words; a deathly anguish spoke from her face, entreated from her lips; and this anguish was for his master, concerned only his rescue. There were tears in the poor fellow's eyes; they fell slowly down his cheeks; but he only grasped his musket the more firmly.

"I cannot, Miss Forest! I cannot be false to my duty here; I could not help you through our lines, even to save my master's life. Don't look at me in that way; don't entreat me further! By God above, I cannot do as you wish!"

Jane drew back, and let his arm fall. Her last hope had vanished; the sentiment of duty had more power over Frederic, than even his passionate love for his master. Atkins was right; these Germans were terrible in their iron-sentiment of duty.

"And so Walter is lost!" she moaned faintly.

Frederic shuddered. "Tempt me no further, Miss Forest," he said, "Frederic Erdmann is no traitor!"

Jane trembled at these words. Her wide-open eyes were full of terror.

"What name is that? What are you called?"

"Erdmann! Did you not know that? But you have always heard them call me only Frederic."

Jane leaned against the base of the statue, her breast rose and fell in uncontrollable emotion, her eyes hung upon the man standing before her with an expression that could not be defined; sorrow, anxiety, consternation, all flamed up in that glance, and through all, beamed something like the presage of an infinite happiness.

"Do you know--do you know a young mechanic, Franz Erdmann, of M., who wandered over to France, lived in B., and is now serving in the Prussian army?"

"Why should I not know him?" replied Frederic, surprised more at the strange tone of the question than at the glance which accompanied it. "He is my brother, that is, my foster-brother, as he is usually called."

"And so"--Jane's voice was almost stifled in her terrible excitement--"and so you was that boy whom Erdmann's parents brought from Hamburg?--who grew up with him in M., and after the death of his parents, was adopted by pastor Hartwig! Speak, for God's sake--yes or no!"

"Certainly it was I," replied Frederic. "But where in the world, Miss Forest, did you learn all this!"

Jane did not answer. She summoned all her strength; upon the next question, hung life or death for her.

"And Professor Fernow! He too was reared by pastor Hartwig; but how came he there!"

"Well, it all happened very simply; the pastor took us both into his house the same year. Me first, out of favor and sympathy, because no one else would have me, and a few months later, my master, his sister's son, because his parents had suddenly died, and he had no other relations. As I was already there, he could not very well send me away, and so he kept us both. He did not do it willingly, and we had to pay dear for the bread he gave us; I by hard work around the house, and my master at the writing-desk; the pastor was determined he should be a scholar, but at the first, he would far rather have made verses. Well, all that soon ended; pastor Hartwig kept us well in rein.--God rest his soul! It did not go well with me until he really was at rest, and my young master, who became his heir, took me in charge. We have been almost twenty years together."

Jane had listened breathlessly, her hands pressed against her heart, which she thought must burst, and yet a stony burden had been lifted from it. The out-cry of happiness that broke from her inmost soul, was it for the brother found at last, or for him she had so long regarded as a brother! She did not know, but even the thought of Walter's dangers, receded at this moment; she was conscious of only one thing:--the fearful contradiction in her soul was settled; the terrible conflict ended. Whatever might come now, love for Walter Fernow was no longer sin!