CHAPTER XXI.
[AN ACCIDENT].
The rain rattled against the glass enclosure of the balcony, flash after flash of lightning illumined the darkness, and the crashing thunder shook the walls of the old manor-house of Linau to their foundations.
Hugo von Wangen was pacing the spacious room restlessly to and fro. The storm had been raging for more than two hours. The rain was falling in torrents, and through it could be heard the rushing noise of the brook at the end of the garden,--it was plainly overflowing its banks.
"The storm is increasing," said Wangen, and his words instantly received confirmation from an intensely vivid flash of lightning, followed by a reverberating clap of thunder. The panes in the windows shook almost to breaking, and the howling of the blast all but drowned the sound of his voice.
"You make me very nervous," Bertha said, "by pacing backwards and forwards in that manner, like some wild animal in a cage. Come and sit down with us, your restlessness can do no good."
Wangen did not heed her; he quickened his steps, his anxiety evidently increasing every minute. "I hope there has been no accident," he said. "The Dombrowker bridge is unsafe at the best of times, and very dangerous in a storm like this."
"Don't worry yourself, Hugo," Clara rejoined, leaving the table where she had been seated at her embroidery and affectionately putting her arm through her brother's as he pursued his restless walk. "Herr Kämpf is with the men, and he is so prudent he will see that nothing happens. Perhaps he has not started from the station, but is waiting there for the storm to abate."
"Clara is right," Bertha said, kindly. Since Elise and her charge had made their appearance again at supper the mistress of the house had been once more all sweetness and amiability, and had seemed desirous of effacing any unfavorable impression produced by her previous ill humour. "Herr Kämpf is certainly waiting at the station. He must have seen the storm coming up all the afternoon."
"That is just why he will surely have driven over,--it came up so very slowly, and then burst forth with such sudden fury. Something must surely have hap----"
He interrupted himself to listen. The noise of the rain beating against the glass panes was fainter for the moment, and Wangen distinctly heard the rolling of wheels in the court-yard.
It ceased, and the next moment the door of the garden-room was hurriedly opened, and Inspector Kämpf appeared on the balcony. The water was dripping from his wet and muddy overcoat, and his hair hung in damp, straight strings over his sunburned forehead.
"Thank God you are back again!" Wangen exclaimed, hastening to meet him, but pausing as he looked into the troubled face of the man, who turned in some hesitation from him to the ladies.
"We are back again," the inspector said, after an instant's pause. "The first carriage is here, the other is directly behind us, nothing has happened to us, but--I should be sorry to startle madame and the ladies, but--there has been an accident. A stranger left the station a short time before us in a one-horse light wagon, and wagon and horse fell over the cliffs in the Dombrowker Pass. The driver is dead, and the stranger is senseless. He fell but a short distance, but there is a wound upon his forehead,--he must have struck his head against a stone. We put him into our foremost wagon and brought him here; there was nothing to be done for the unfortunate driver. The storm was furious, and we have been obliged to drive very slowly. The stranger may revive, but I fear----the men are now bringing him into the hall."
As he spoke, the sound of many footsteps and a murmur of low voices were heard in the hall, whither Wangen instantly went, followed by the inspector, Elise, Clara, and last by Bertha.
The spacious hall was filled with men-servants and maids, who had hurried hither from all parts of the house and stables upon hearing of the accident. The unconscious stranger had been carefully brought in from the wagon and laid upon various wraps on the floor of the hall, where men and maids were crowding about him, whispering their pity and dismay, and wondering who the unfortunate man could be lying there as pale and lifeless as the poor driver, whose body had just arrived in the second wagon.
No one knew him, not even Herr Berndal, the second inspector, who had lived at Linau for years, and who knew every one in all the country round. One of the men affirmed that he had seen the gentleman get out of a first-class carriage when the train arrived at the railway-station. He must be a rich man, he thought, for he had a very grand air, and the station-master had bowed low to him and had sent one of the porters to get him a conveyance immediately.
There was nothing of the grand air to be seen now in the senseless figure lying there, his clothes muddy and disordered, his face ghastly pale and stained with the blood that trickled from a wound in the forehead, now half concealed by the thick dark hair. The features were scarcely distinguishable in the fitful light of the candles in the hall and of a stable lantern held by one of the men, but the maid at the man's elbow whispered that the poor gentleman would be very fine-looking if he were not so horribly pale, and he could not be over thirty at most.
The whispering suddenly ceased when Herr von Wangen appeared, and the servants respectfully made way for the new arrivals.
Wangen looked down compassionately upon the unconscious man; Bertha, after one timid glance at the motionless form, hid her face in her hands and turned away in horror; while Elise stooped, and, gently brushing aside the hair from the wound, listened eagerly, in hopes of catching some faint sound of breathing from the parted lips.
"There is hope," she said, gently: "he is still living." Then, as the light of the lantern held by the man beside her fell full upon the stranger's face, she started, grew very pale, and with difficulty suppressed a cry of horror. "Good God!" she whispered, "it is he! Oh, horrible!"
Her start, her change of colour, and her whispered words attracted Bertha's attention again, and Wangen, no less amazed, bent over the prostrate figure and eagerly examined the lifeless features. "You know him?" he asked, hurriedly. "Yes, yes; I too have seen that face before, but where? Now I remember--at Castle Osternau. Surely it is the Candidate who disappeared so suddenly, the tutor with the odd name,--yes, I remember it now,--Pigglewitch."
The name, even at this moment, called forth a smile from some of the servants, but Wangen exclaimed, eagerly, "There! his lips moved, he will recover! Help me, Hans, instantly to take him up gently and carry him to the blue room, it is ready for guests. Be careful! he is coming to himself."
And, all alert in the hope of the stranger's recovery, Wangen himself supported the head and shoulders of the wounded man, and, with the help of the groom, carried him slowly up the steep staircase to the designated guest-chamber and laid him upon the huge old-fashioned bed. Elise walked beside the bearers, lending what aid she could, and never heeding that the blood, which was beginning to flow freely from the wound in the unfortunate man's forehead, was staining her hands and her dress.
"We must have medical aid immediately," Wangen said, when his burden had been safely deposited in the blue room; "every minute is precious."
He was interrupted by a vivid flash of lightning and a terrific clap of thunder, the echo of which was drowned in the dashing of the rain against the rattling window-panes.
"No servant will venture to drive to Ostrowko in such a night as this," Inspector Berndal declared; "we shall have to wait until the storm abates. It would be impossible to brave its fury."
Elise had occupied herself in arranging the pillows about the wounded man's head, after sending a maid for water to wash the wound, but as the words of the inspector fell upon her ear she turned to him, and said, quietly, "I know the road to Ostrowko perfectly well. I will drive over there and bring the doctor if you will have a vehicle made ready for me."
"What! you drive to Ostrowko in this storm, Fräulein Lieschen? Impossible!"
"You forget that I am a country girl, and accustomed from my earliest childhood to drive alone over the roughest possible roads. My sight is keen, my hand is sure. I know the road, and am not afraid either of the darkness or of the storm. Delay may imperil a human life; you have just said that every minute is precious, Herr von Wangen. You must not prevent my going to Ostrowko."
The inspector looked admiringly at the girl, who announced her daring resolve as quietly as if it were the easiest and most natural of undertakings.
"I really believe you would do as you say, Fräulein von Osternau," he said, "but it is out of the question. I never could look any one in the face again if I allowed you to go. I will go for the doctor, and bring him back with me as soon as may be."
"You have just got home," Elise remonstrated.
"All the more reason why I should be the one to go out again,--I could not possibly be wetter than I am. I shall bring the doctor back with me."
He was so evidently resolved to go that Elise did not gainsay him, but quietly declared her intention to stay beside the wounded man until the doctor arrived. Wangen suggested that, since the poor fellow was unconscious, the housekeeper or one of the maids might just as well relieve her of this duty; but Elise was firm, and Bertha supported her in her decision, although in a mocking way that was very irritating. "Let her do as she wishes," she said to her husband, quite loud enough to be heard by the self-constituted nurse. "It will be a comfort to her. Do you remember her enthusiasm for her music-teacher when she was but seventeen? She preserved his image faithfully in her heart and recognized him immediately. We ought not to interfere with her."
Elise blushed painfully, but she suppressed the bitter retort that rose to her lips. Clara threw her arms round her and whispered to her, "Don't let her distress you, darling Elise. She grows worse and worse; you must not mind her."
Wangen, too, was grieved by Bertha's tone and manner, reminding him as it did of his late interview with her, and his voice was not so cordial as usual as he rejoined, "This is no time for jesting, Bertha. Come, let us leave Fräulein Lieschen to her work of mercy. The poor man could not be in better hands."