CHAPTER I.
I'd give
The Ukraine back again to live
It o'er once more, and be a page,
The happy page, who was the lord
Of one soft heart and his own sword.
Mazeppa.
Count Willnitz was striding to and fro in the old hall of his ancestral castle, in the heart of Lithuania. Through the high and narrow Gothic windows the light fell dimly into the cold apartment, just glancing on the massive pillars, and bringing into faint relief the dusty banners and old trophies of arms that hung along the walls, for the wintry day was near its close. The count was a dark-browed, stern-featured man. His cold, gray eyes were sunken in their orbits; and deep lines were drawn about his mouth, as if some secret grief were gnawing at his vitals. And, indeed, good cause existed for his sorrow; for, but a few days previously, he had lost his wife. They had buried the countess at midnight, as was the custom of the family, in the old, ancestral vault of the castle. Vassal and serf had waved their torches over the black throat of the grave, and the wail of women had gone up through the rocky arches. Still the count had been seen to shed no tear. An old warrior, schooled in the stern academy of military life, he had early learned to conquer his emotions; indeed, there were those who said that nature, in moulding his aristocratic form, had forgotten to provide it with a heart; and this legend found facile credence with the cowering serfs who owned his sway, and the ill-paid soldiers who followed his banner. The last male descendant of a long and noble line, he was ill able to maintain the splendor of his family name; for his dominions had been "curtailed of their fair proportion," and his finances were in a disordered state.
As, like Hardicanute in the old ballad,
"Stately strode he east the wa',
And stately strode he west,"
there entered a figure almost as grim and stern as himself. This was an old woman who now filled the office of housekeeper, having succeeded to full sway on the death of the countess, the young daughter of the count being unable or unwilling to assume any care in the household.
"Well, dame," said the count, pausing in his walk, and confronting the old woman, "how goes it with you, and how with Alvina? Still sorrowing over her mother's death?"
"The tears of a maiden are like the dews in the morning, count," replied the old woman. "The first sunbeam dries them up."
"And what ray of joy can penetrate the dismal hole?" asked the count.
"Do you remember the golden bracelet you gave your lady daughter on her wedding day?" inquired the old woman, fixing her keen, gray eye on her master's face as she spoke.
"Ay, well," replied the count; "golden gifts are not so easily obtained, of late, that I should forget their bestowal But what of the bawble?"
"I saw it in the hands of the page Alexis, when he thought himself unobserved."
"How!" cried the count, his cheek first reddening, and then becoming deadly pale with anger; "is the blood of the gitano asserting its claim? Has he begun to pilfer? The dog shall hang from the highest battlement of the castle!"
"May it not have been a free gift, sir count?" suggested the hideous hag.
"A free gift! What mean you? A love token? Ha! dare you insinuate? And yet her blood is——"
"Hush! walls have sometimes ears," said the old woman, looking cautiously around. "The gypsy child you picked up in the forest is now almost a man; your daughter is a woman. The page is beautiful; they have been thrown much together. Alvina is lonely, romantic——"
"Enough, enough!" said the count, stamping his foot. "I will watch him. If your suspicions be correct——" He paused, and added between his clinched teeth, "I shall know how to punish the daring of the dog. Away!"
The old woman hobbled away, rubbing her skinny hands together, and chuckling at the prospect of having her hatred of the young countess and the page, both of whom had excited her malevolence, speedily gratified.
Count Willnitz was on the eve of a journey to Paris with his daughter. They were to start in a day or two. This circumstance brought on the adventure we shall speedily relate.
Between Alexis, the beautiful page whom the late countess had found and fancied among a wandering Bohemian horde, and the high-born daughter of the feudal house, an attachment had sprung up, nurtured by the isolation in which they lived, and the romantic character and youth of the parties. About to be separated from his mistress for a long time, the page had implored her to grant him an interview, and the lovers met in an apartment joining the suite of rooms appropriated to the countess, and where they were little likely to be intruded upon. In the innocence of their hearts, they had not dreamed that their looks and movements had been watched, and they gave themselves up to the happiness of unrestrained converse. But at the moment when the joy of Alexis seemed purest and brightest, the gathering thunder cloud was overhanging him. At the moment when, sealing his pledge of eternal fidelity and memory in absence, he tremblingly printed a first and holy kiss upon the blushing cheek of Alvina, an iron hand was laid upon his shoulder, and, torn ruthlessly from the spot, he was dashed against the wall, while a terrible voice exclaimed,—
"Dog, you shall reckon with me for this!"
Alvina threw herself at her father's feet.
"Pardon—pardon for Alexis, father! I alone am to blame."
"Rise! rise!" thundered the count. "Art thou not sufficiently humiliated? Dare to breathe a word in his favor, and it shall go hard with thy minion. Punishment thou canst not avert; say but a word, and that punishment becomes death; for he is mine, soul and body, to have and to hold, to head or to hang—my vassal, my slave! What ho, there!"
As he stamped his foot, a throng of attendants poured into the room.
"Search me that fellow!" cried the count, pointing with his finger to Alexis.
A dozen officers' hands examined the person of Alexis, one of them, more eager than the rest, discovered a golden bracelet, and brought it to the count.
"Ha!" cried the count, as he gazed upon the trinket; "truly do I recognize this bawble. Speak, dog! when got'st thou this?"
Alvina was about to speak, and acknowledge that she had bestowed it; but before she could utter a syllable, the page exclaimed,—
"I confess all—I stole it."
"Enough!" cried the count. "Daughter, retire to your apartment."
"Father!" cried the wretched girl, wringing her hands.
"Silence, countess!" cried the count, with terrific emphasis. "Remember that I wield the power of life and death!"
Casting one look of mute agony at the undaunted page, the hapless lady retired from the room.
"Zabitzki," said the count, addressing the foremost of his attendants, "take me this thieving dog into the court yard, and lay fifty stripes upon his back. Then bear him to the dungeon in the eastern turret that overlooks the moat; there keep him till you learn my further pleasure."
The page was brave as steel. His cheek did not blanch, nor did his heart quail, as he heard the dreadful sentence. His lips uttered no unmanly entreaty for forgiveness; but, folding his arms, and drawing up his elegant figure to its full height, he fixed his eagle eye upon the count, with a glance full of bitter hatred and mortal defiance. And afterwards, when submitting to the ignominious punishment, with his flesh lacerated by the scourge, no groan escaped his lips that might reach the listening ear of Alvina. He bore it all with Spartan firmness.
Midnight had struck when the young countess, shrouded in a cloak, and bearing a key which she had purchased by its weight in gold, ascended to the eastern turret, resolved to liberate the prisoner. The door swung heavily back on its rusted hinges as she cautiously entered the dungeon. Drawing back the slide from a lantern she carried in her left hand, she threw its blaze before her, calling out at the same time, "Alexis!"
No voice responded.
"They have murdered him!" she murmured, as she rushed forward and glanced wildly around her.
The cell was empty. She sprang to the grated window. The bars had been sawn through and wrenched apart, with the exception of one, from which dangled a rope made of fragments of linen and blanket twisted and knotted together. Had Alexis escaped, or perished in the attempt? The moat was deep and broad; but the page was a good swimmer and a good climber, and his heart was above all proof. There was little doubt in the mind of his mistress that fortune had favored him. Sinking on her knees, she gave utterance to a fervent thanksgiving to the almighty Power which had protected the hapless boy, and then retired to her couch to weep in secret. The next day the castle rang with the escape of Alexis. Messengers were sent out in pursuit of him in every direction; but a fall of snow in the latter part of the night prevented the possibility of tracking him, and even the dogs that the count put upon the scent were completely baffled. The next day the count and his daughter started on their journey.