Tales from the German. Volume I.

by C. F. van der Velde

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The rising sun of the next morning found every one busy at Gyllensten, and the travelers prepared for their excursion. Christine, who had hoped to fly in advance of the rest of the company on her swift dun courser, was compelled to take a seat in the carriage with her father, who feared his gout, and her noble horse was led after her by the domestics, who accompanied the expedition in another carriage. Arwed and Megret, with their grooms, were in the saddle. The company set forth in a northerly direction, having the gulf of Bothnia on their right, and the mountains of Lapland on their left, passing the stations Beygde and Skelleste until they arrived at the little port of Pitea, which, yet poorer than Umea, lay at the mouth of the Pitea Elf. There, with the relay horses, six Swedish dragoons, furnished by the bailiwick and led by the sheriff, marched up with drawn swords to perform escort duty for the remainder of the governor's journey.

'Wherefore trouble these people, Mr. Sheriff?' said the governor. 'The road is safe, as far as I know, and for that reason I took no escort with me from Umea.'

'For some time past,' answered the sheriff, 'a band of robbers have beset this neighborhood. Two well planned and successfully executed burglaries, in quick succession, have created much alarm; and yesterday, a man who attempted to travel to Tornea, was found slain upon the road between here and Lulea.'

'And you have yet made no effort to apprehend the perpetrators of the deed?' asked the governor discontentedly. 'If the police do their duty such transgressors cannot long escape the vengeance of the laws.'

'The waste and desolate condition of that region,' said the sheriff by way of excuse, 'facilitates the flight of the robbers and renders pursuit difficult. The inhabitants of the scattered houses and small hamlets fear to seize a single robber while their helpless situation exposes them to the vengeance of the whole band, which numbers thirty men. Their leader is called Black Naddock, and always has his face colored black when he goes out upon his predatory excursions.'

'You must cause strict search to be made,' directed the governor. 'Write to the sheriff of Umea, in my name, for as many men as he can spare. Until they arrive you must do the best you can with your dragoons. They need not accompany us. We are numerous and used to danger. Should the robbers venture to attack us, we should suffer less from the encounter than they.'

He entered his carriage and the whole company continued their route, still in a northerly direction, by the little town of Lulea, where the greater and less Lulea Elf roll their mingled waters into the sea, until they arrived at Ranea, where the gulf of Bothnia forms an angle and the road turns off to the east. So far nothing had occurred to justify the apprehensions of the sheriff, and the caution of the travelers, which had hitherto kept them in close companionship, that they might be ready to aid each other, began to relax. Megret, whom Christine jestingly accused of riding near the carriage not for hers but his own safety, had angrily ridden forward; and Arwed, giving way to his own reflections, had turned into a fir-wood on the left, in which he followed a foot-path leading toward the north. He might have followed this path for the space of an hour, when he heard at a distance ahead of him a sudden cry for help. Giving the spur to his horse, he flew in the direction whence the voice came. He soon came in view of Megret contending with four ill-looking fellows, who had seized his horse by the bridle and furiously beset him with cudgels and cutlasses.

'However little he may deserve it,' said the youth to himself, 'one must help him in his extremity!' and, with a pistol in his left, and a drawn sword in his right hand, he rushed into the fight. This attack called the attention of the ruffians from Megret, who, taking advantage of the circumstance, recovered his bridle and made off with all possible speed.

Angry at the escape of their prey, the robbers now fell upon Arwed. The latter, having fired and missed, soon had full employment for his sword and the activity of his horse, in keeping off the ruffians, who attacked him on all sides, and appeared to be well accustomed to such combats. He made an attempt to wheel his horse suddenly to the right and thus make an opening for escape; but here two other men, who by their appearance belonged to the gang, met him with well aimed rifles.

'I could have wished a more honorable death,' he murmured, and at that moment a tall man in a green hunting dress sprang from a neighboring thicket. A red plume waved from his hat, and his face was black as a Moor's. He spoke some angry words in an unintelligible jargon to the robbers, upon which they immediately abandoned Arwed and disappeared in the bushes, and the Moor motioned to Arwed to depart.

'Thanks, captain!' said Arwed, rejoiced at this unexpected rescue, and pushing forward, he soon found himself upon the highway.

There he met Megret, with both of their servants, coming to seek for him. 'Here you are, then!' said Megret out of breath, 'and, as I hope, not wounded. I should never have forgiven myself if you had been injured in rescuing me!'

'God be praised that you are alive, Arwed!' cried the beauteous Christine, flying to meet him upon her favorite dun courser, and her blue eyes flashed upon him so affectionately as to cause a fluttering at his heart.

'You see, major,' said Megret flatteringly, 'how instantaneously all were hastening to your assistance.'

'Your promptness is worthy of all thanks, colonel,' answered Arwed; 'but your help would have been of little service to me had I not been so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Black Naddock. His command caused the fiends by whom I was hard pressed, to vanish. Had he not appeared most opportunely, you would in all probability have found only my dead body.'

'That would indeed have been purchasing the safety of a man who could leave his preserver in the danger which had been incurred for his sake, at too dear a rate,' remarked Christine, with bitterness.

Megret did not notice the sarcasm, as at that moment he was begging of Arwed, with singular eagerness, that he would describe the personal appearance of the robber-captain.

'He was a tall, well made man,' answered Arwed, 'about Mac Donalbain's size, in a hunting dress, well armed, and with a black face.'

'But the features of that face?' asked Megret, anxiously. 'Bore they no resemblance to any you have heretofore seen?'

'Really!' answered Arwed with a smile, 'I did not give myself time to examine the blackamoor. In leaving him with all convenient haste I did what you surely will excuse, as you set the first example of a resort to the spur.'

'You ought to have shot him down!' continued Megret venomously, 'and then we should have been no longer in the dark with regard to his identity.'

'At the moment when he had just saved my life?' asked Arwed, with earnestness. 'Surely, that cannot be your true meaning, colonel!'

'The countess is fainting!' screamed old Knut, spurring his horse to Christine's side, and catching the pale maiden in his arms.

'Fainting! such a heroine fainting upon so slight an occasion!' sneeringly remarked Megret. 'There must be some especial and secret cause for it! Whether that cause rides here upon the highway, or skulks there in the woods?--that is the question.'

Arwed, who had listened in silent wonder to Megret's observations, which were wholly unintelligible to him, had in the meantime ridden to the other side of Christine, and there assisted Knut in supporting the poor girl in her saddle while they slowly returned to the carriage, from which the governor had taken the horses in order to send the coachman to the belligerents, as a reinforcement.

'Thank heaven, it is not necessary!' cried he, glancing at Arwed, and, extending his hand, he affectionately exclaimed, 'my brave son!'

'We bring you a patient,' said Arwed, lifting Christine from her horse, with Knut's assistance, and placing her in the carriage by her father's side.

'Yes, no dissuasion could prevent it,' answered the governor. She would go. She has had her way, and I am glad the unmanageable girl has for once been compelled to yield to the weakness of her sex.'

At this moment Christine opened her eyes. Her glance at first fell upon Arwed with inexpressible tenderness. She then shrunk and trembled as though her soul was subdued by some horrible fear. Terror and dismay were depicted in her features, and she hid her face in the bosom of her astonished father.