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 assignation 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 God. 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 Kurfürst. 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 ejaculated 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, assuring 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 coarse 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 God does not carry off the prisoners with the aid of His hosts through the air, none," said the old man, who with a "God 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 Kurfürst," 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."
A carriage was quickly harnessed and the good lady hurried together with the exiled Huguenot to the Castle as fast as the horses could gallop. "A rare visit, my Lady Cousin," greeted the Prince looking in astonishment at the two ladies. Quickly and earnestly did the Abbess explain the motives of her visit, and related what she herself had heard as the cause of Lydia's arrest. With a correct instinct she ascribed Lydia's adventure by night to the assignation made by Laurenzano, for the country people had immediately reported to the eagerly listening nuns the event which had taken place on the Kreuzgrund. The Kurfürst listened attentively. "That is a nice sort of fellow, that Pigavetta has brought into my dominions; but how did you come to know that he had a love affair with Erastus' daughter."
The Countess hesitated. But remembering that nothing less than the life of her darling pupil was at stake, she proceeded tremblingly and repentingly with her account of the dreadful exercitia which had led her to find out Paul's sentiments towards Klytia, and she exposed the false Priest all the more as she suspected that he himself had forged this accusation against Lydia, to revenge his unrequited love. "I never gazed into a blacker soul," she said shudderingly.
"In other words, my Lady Cousin," replied the Kurfürst angrily, "a punishment is once more being inflicted on you and others for having turned your Institution into a refuge for Papists. What has been reported to me is then true; you permitted this black traitor to perform secret masses."
The Countess remained silent and looked down confused. The Kurfürst Frederic, enraged at this discovery was about to dismiss the two petitioners without another word, had not Frau Belier, whose husband he knew to be a stern Huguenot, beseeched him most affectingly, not to permit the poor imprisoned Lydia to suffer for the sins of the wolf in sheep's clothing, he therefore added he that he would order the Amtmann to report to him.
"Oh, most Gracious Lord," prayed the lively Frenchwoman throwing herself on her knees before him, "you do not know the horrible treatment in the Witches' Tower. They will drive the poor child mad, they will frighten her to death, if she must pass the night there."
"Order must exist," said the Kurfürst. "Master Ulrich will be told that he will answer with his head for the safety of the maiden. No person must be allowed to enter her cell till the Magistrate comes in person to fetch her out. I myself will vouch, that no hair of her head shall be injured, if her innocence can be proved. She who however runs about the woods at night, and kisses parsons on the cross roads, cannot complain if the police lay hold of her. I am myself sorry for the pretty child, but for the moment I only know your side of the story, and not what the Magistrate may have to say. Till her trial is at an end, she may keep company with her father in the great Tower, and that is all I can do in the matter."
The ladies perceived that nothing more was to be obtained from the Kurfürst, and so as not to enrage the Prince against their protégée, they returned sadly homewards.
Towards evening Laurenzano called on Frau Belier, to demand back his dagger. "Your extravagant ideas would now answer no purpose," said the little woman, "for to-morrow Lydia will be moved to the Tower to be with her father, which is a kindness for her and him." She hastily related to the Neapolitan how she had managed to obtain this from the Kurfürst. But the passionate young artist swore by the eyes of the Madonna, that he would not suffer his affianced bride to be terrified for another hour in the dreadful tower, if he could prevent it, and he explained to her, the plans which he had formed for her rescue. "You are a fool with your plans," said the spirited little woman. "To set fire to the Tower, kill her, kill yourself, what is the use of such help for the poor child? And allowing that you could carry her off, where will you bring her to, and how thankful will she feel if through your foolery here her father's fate is rendered worse?"
The artist gazed at her in an inane manner and declared he must do something, if it were only to kill himself, but he could not endure the thought that Lydia was suffering and that he lived unable to help her. As Frau Belier saw that she could not move him from his plans she took to temporizing. "Wait then," she said, "till Lydia and her father are together and then save both at one and the same time."
"I cannot wait."
"Not wait till morning? Are you mad when it is a question of Lydia's life and happiness?" Felix bit his lips furiously.
"Filou Laurenzano," shrieked out the bird in a shrill voice. "Maladetto!" cursed the artist aiming in his blind rage a blow of the dagger which had been returned to him at the parrot, with unfortunately so good an effect that the head of the bird flew against the opposite wall, whilst the body with a fluttering of the wings fell to the ground. Loudly shrieked the Frenchwoman. "Detestable murderer, what has this poor creature then done to you, that you should slay it?" The artist looked about him with so much frenzy in his eyes, that the frightened woman forgot the bird and sprang away from the raving madman. "Oh well now," she called out, "murder me also, that will do much towards helping Lydia," and she burst into convulsions of tears.
Felix stared vacantly at the quivering body of the bird, and saw a red pool of blood tinging the floor. Finally he slowly passed both his hands over his eyes and forehead: "Pardon me, gracious lady, sorrow has turned my brain. You are right, I can undertake nothing now, till I am calmer myself. What you say is likewise true, Lydia will not fly with me without her father, and as all the plans of the Castle are in my hands, it will be easier for me to rescue father and daughter from the great Tower, than Lydia alone from the Witches' Tower." The little woman seemed apparently to agree eagerly with these views, in order to calm the maddened man. Her hope was, that the Kurfürst would set Lydia free the following day, and the conviction that the prudent Erastus would never undertake an attempt at flight calmed her as to that matter. So she dismissed Felix with the best wishes and rejoiced when she finally succeeded in getting rid of the lunatic. She then with bitter tears raised up the body of her many colored pet and kissed it. "How much I must love Lydia," she said, "that I did not scratch out the eyes of this wicked man. But he won't get off so easily." And she carefully dried up the blood of the bird with a fine cloth, and weeping laid the relic in an artistically carved box.