The Breaking of the Storm, Vol. III.

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER VIII.

They looked back after the groom as he galloped back to the castle.

"Carla!" said the Count.

He had brought his horse close up to hers; she bent towards him, and he put his right arm round her slender form and kissed her again and again on lips and cheek.

"Bad man!" said Carla.

He hastily put up his hand to remove the veil which the wind was blowing between their faces, and in so doing pulled off her hat.

"Axel, do be sensible!"

She dropped the reins on her horse's neck and tied her veil round her hat.

"Sensible!" cried the Count; "when I am really alone for the first time with the prettiest girl in all the world!"

"You are too bad," said she. She put on her hat again and secured it; he tried to renew the charming game. "You shall not have another kiss!" cried she, touching her horse with the whip and starting forward.

He soon overtook her, and for a short time they galloped on side by side, lost in each other, eye meeting eye, and often hand touching hand, unheeding the road till both horses suddenly stood still.

"Hallo!" cried the Count. The horses would go no farther; they had long been hardly able to lift their feet out of the swampy ground in which they had now sunk above the fetlock. They were frightened, and tried to turn back. "Pooh!" said the Count; "we know all about that! Wallach has carried me over much worse roads than this; and your horse is much lighter made."

"Come along!" cried Carla.

They urged their horses on; the terrified brutes flew over the uncertain ground, through pools of water, over a wooden bridge, through water again, till the rising ground grew firmer under their feet.

"We have come across," said the Count laughing, "but how we are to get back I do not know. We shall have to stay together for good, I believe. Would that please you, my dear girl?"

They were riding now at a foot's pace to breathe their horses over the higher ground between the brook, which they had just dashed through, and Wissow Head, at the foot of which ran the long line of the railway embankment towards Ahlbeck. The gale was right in their teeth now, so that they felt its full power; and the panting horses were forced to lean forward as if they had a heavy weight behind them, while their riders let the reins hang loosely, not sorry to have their hands at liberty.

"I would pass an eternity with you!" said Carla, as her glowing cheek almost touched his; "but I must be back in an hour."

"Then, by Jove, we should have to turn back at once; I assure you we cannot get through that brook again; I can hardly see the bridge now, though it is only two minutes since we passed it! it is extraordinary! We shall have to go round by Gristow and Damerow." He pointed with the end of his whip back towards the chain of hills. "It is a terribly long round."

"Louisa was so disagreeable."

"Let her be!"

"She will say such horrid things of us to Edward!"

"Let her!"

"You will have a dreadful scene with Edward!"

"So long as I have you----"

"And when you have me----"

"Carla!"

"Hush! Swear to me that when we get back you will declare our engagement in the presence of the Baroness, of Elsa, and of Signor Giraldi, and that this day month we shall be man and wife!"

"Does it need an oath?"

"I will have an oath."

She caught his hand and pressed it to her bosom.

"What shall I swear by? by this little hand? by that fair form? by your own sweet self, which I could devour for love?"

"By your honour!"

The voice had no longer its former coaxing tone--the words came with an effort, as if the raging storm oppressed her.

And his answer, too, came hesitatingly and forced: "Upon my honour!"

His eyes, which before had been raised full of passion towards her, avoided hers; she drew her hand hastily out of his, turned her horse sharply round, and galloped away.

The movement had been so sudden that it was not possible for him to have prevented it. But now he even held back his horse, which had also turned and wished to follow its companion.

"Shall I let her go?"

That was his first thought, followed by a stream of others: an unavoidable duel with Ottomar, his own desperate financial position, which would hardly be improved by Carla's hundred thousand thalers; the recollection of a cousin in Silesia, who would have brought him a dowry of a million, and a marriage with whom had been proposed to him the other day most unexpectedly--he had been for years at daggers drawn with that branch of the family. And then she who was riding away really did not suit him at all; he was merely in love with her, and had never contemplated marriage.

The spirited horse, already startled by the storm, and seeing its companion disappearing in the distance, reared high, and as its rider forced it down, darted forward like an arrow. The Count could not perhaps at this moment have held it in, but he did not wish to do so; he dug in his spurs, and in a few seconds--his hesitation had been only momentary--had overtaken Carla.

"Carla, Carla!"

"Go! You do not love me!"

He spurred forward so that he could catch the bridle of her horse, then turned and so stopped them both.

"You shall not escape me so!"

She looked at him almost with hatred.

"But, Carla, this is madness!"

"I am mad," murmured she.

"And I am--madly in love with you. But what matter?"

His beautiful white teeth glittered as, putting his arm round her, he laughingly exclaimed: "Will you come with me now?"

"With you? Take me! Take me! I am yours, yours!"

"You foolish darling!"

He pressed kiss after kiss upon her burning lips, then gave back the bridle into her hand, and both turning their horses suddenly round, they rode on side by side in the teeth of the gale--as his horse was the stronger and faster he could do as he pleased--along the gradually sinking ground beside the railway embankment down to Ahlbeck.

They did not speak another word; there was no need.

In Ahlbeck, not far from the beach, stood an inn, which for some years had provided decent entertainment for the summer guests who could not find accommodation at the more important places along the coast, or who were attracted by the quietness and cheapness of the place; and during the last autumn, by the suggestion and greatly assisted by the money of the Count, the little inn had been turned into a fashionable hotel. It was kept by a young widow--a protégée of the Count's. In the upper story of the house were two rooms, often used by the Count as night quarters when he had stayed out shooting too late to get back to Golm or Golmberg. If the lady and gentleman chose to have these rooms no one would trouble themselves about it, least of all the landlady, who would have quite enough to do with the other guests, the two engineers who were superintending the Railway and Harbour works, the ship's captains and revenue officers, and any one else who might be crowding the public rooms as usual on such a day. And if, after waiting in vain for the groom, he appeared at last, having missed them as they returned home, he might just ride quietly back to Castle Warnow.

Immediately before reaching Ahlbeck the road, which till then had led them over the open ground, suddenly narrowed between two dunes, advanced posts of the chain of sand-hills along the shore, which formed a sort of doorway, through which, on fine days, might be seen a wonderful view of the village running down to the beach; and beyond the village the beach itself, always covered with boats; and beyond again, the boundless ocean. They had gained this spot by the utmost, exertion of their horses, when the panting brutes suddenly fell back, and they themselves, accomplished riders as both were, were nearly flung from their saddles. The force of the storm had closed the space between the two hills as if with iron gates.

"Let us turn back!" said Carla.

The Count did not answer at once; he saw the details of what, to the short-sighted Carla, was only confused mist; the upper part of the village lying nearest to them was half destroyed by the storm, so that hardly a house retained its whole roof, while in the lower part only here and there a house, amongst others the inn and the two great sheds for smoking the herrings, appeared out of a cloud, which at first the Count could not make out at all. It could not possibly be the foam and froth of the storm-beaten surf? If this were the surf, where were the houses which had stood there in a long line close to the beach? Where were the hundred and fifty Ahlbeck fishing smacks which had come in yesterday on account of the storm? Where the six boats laden with cut stone from Sundin which had anchored yesterday evening at the breakwater? Where the two breakwaters themselves, which had been begun last autumn and during the mild, calm winter and the unusually low tides had been almost finished? Where, above all, the million of thalers which had been also almost entirely spent in the building? Could that infernal Superintendent of Pilots, who was always coming across his path, have been right here after all? That fellow who, at this moment, perhaps, was embracing Elsa as his betrothed, whilst he----

"Over it if we cannot get through it!" cried he, spurring his horse up the hill to the right, while between his teeth he muttered: "I will get something out of the business at any rate."

Carla had followed him.

From above, however, the view was not much more reassuring; it was indeed so fearful that the Count himself, as they forced their horses step by step through the broken bushes, doubted whether they had not better turn back. And what seemed to him even more ominous than the raging sea, was the crowd of people which his keen eyes could distinguish swarming down below, and as he now perceived hastening in small parties up the ridge of Wissow Head, at the foot of which stood a part of the village. They might be the people who lived nearest to the beach, the navvies, perhaps, who had run up their temporary huts on the level sand. What did it matter to him? Let them help themselves as best they might. The tide had certainly not reached the inn, and that was the principal point. He had carried off Carla from her sister-in-law's guardianship at the castle, under the pretext of showing her the full effect of the storm; it would certainly be near enough to them from the inn windows. And should he carry out his purpose amidst all this tumult? It was madness. The maddest act of his whole life, perhaps, but it should be done!

They were riding again now on the narrow sandy road between the first outlying houses. The Count spurred forward. He was glad that the houses hid the view below; he wanted to draw Carla on, who had again several times anxiously inquired whether they had not better turn back. The rest might be managed; it might not perhaps be so bad as it had seemed to him from above; at any rate Carla had hardly seen anything, and was only alarmed at the roar of the surf, which had been bad enough certainly from the heights.

But what was that roar compared to the thunder which met them now, as they turned from the narrow way between the first low huts into the broad village street, at whose lower end stood the inn, and which led directly down to the sea. It seemed to the Count strangely short; and indeed the sea, which used to leave several hundred yards of smooth sand uncovered, now flung its waves far up the street. And that street was crowded with crying, shrieking, screaming women and children, and shouting and halloing men, flinging out their goods pell-mell from the houses, rushing back to fetch more, and strewing everything wildly over the ground before the gale brought their houses down about their ears.

"Make way there, make way!" called the Count imperiously.

He did not feel particularly comfortable in this crowd, in which more than one person glared angrily at him, and hardly moved out of the way of the horses. It sounded like a curse, too, which the woman called after him, whom by accident--why did she not get out of the way?--he had knocked down, and who now in the door of her cottage shook both her fists at him, and then pointing her finger at him called to her neighbours; but the raging storm swallowed up the single human voice.

The Count could not even understand half of what the young engineer called to him, who had suddenly--he could not see whence--rushed up to him, as he persistently pointed down below:

"Breakwater--tremendous breakers--boats wrecked--people furious--get back--happen----"

"What should happen to me?" screamed back the Count in answer.

"Mischief--the lady too--unpardonable of you--too late!"

The young man pointed no longer below, but in the direction from which they had come.

The Count, startled more by the look of terror in the young man's face than by the warning itself, turned in his saddle, and at the same moment set spurs to his horse. He had seen a crowd of men and women--foremost the one who had just threatened him--rushing down the street, brandishing sticks, cudgels, and knives.

His first thought had been to take refuge in the inn, which must afford him shelter till he could speak a few words to the people, perhaps from the window--fear had evidently driven them wild. And with this purpose, dashing on before Carla, he had almost gained the little open space in front of the inn, when he suddenly discovered that he was only going from bad to worse.

In the middle of the square, lying on its side, the keel turned towards him, lay one of the Sundin boats, which some huge wave must have flung up here, and around the stranded vessel, with the surf at their feet, whose storm-beaten foam was blowing in clouds of spray over them, were dancing and raging--as only madmen or men who had drunk to madness could have raved--a crowd of navvies and sailors who had taken possession of all the provisions the inn could give them, before the approaching flood engulfed everything.

The idea flashed through the Count's head that it was his duty, if any man's, to interpose here, and at least to attempt by his authority to avert the terrible evils that must be brought upon the unhappy village by these madmen, but he had already repeatedly had the most violent scenes with these ruffians, who were always increasing their demands; he would be torn to pieces if the men who were now pursuing him, urged on by that miserable woman, should join these.

All this passed like lightning through his bewildered brain, but he never thought of Carla for a moment; he was even astonished when, having turned aside from the main street, and dashing at a venture down a side lane to the left, he found himself galloping along the meadows behind the dunes, he suddenly saw Carla again at his side.

"That was done in the nick of time!" cried he; "those scoundrels would have murdered us."

Carla answered not a word. Notwithstanding her extremely short sight, she had been able to form a tolerably correct idea of the danger they had escaped; she knew from the gestures and shouts of the people she had dashed past that it was a matter of life and death to escape them, and she knew also that the man at whose side she now rode had deserted her at the critical moment, and that she had to thank only the speed of her horse and her own powers of riding for her life. Would Ottomar have dashed forward in such a way, careless whether she succeeded in following him or not; whether she escaped from the narrow lanes and little gardens, to do which she had at last been forced to leap a hedge, amidst the shower of stones and sticks which were hurled after her? "He is a coward," her heart whispered to her; "he only cares for himself; I should only have been his victim."

"This is a bad business," thought the Count. "She is affronted of course, though after all, anybody else would have done the same in my place.--You don't know how those fellows detest me!"

He spoke the last words aloud, by way of saying something at any rate.

Carla answered not a word.

"An infernal business," thought the Count, relapsing into silence.

So they galloped on, side by side, through the sand, which the unceasing rain had fortunately somewhat hardened, along the inner edge of the dunes, which were now the only barrier between them and the sea, which thundered and roared on the other side, often tossing up the broken edges of its waves high enough to shower down upon them in torrents, Fortunately the wooden bridge still stood over the brook which ran into the sea close by Ahlbeck, through a sharp cut in the dunes; the brook even had not overspread its banks so much here as above, where the lower ground offered no opposition to the water; but the Count thought with a shudder of what might happen when they got to the Pölitz farm, on the edge of the broad hollow which extended to the sea almost entirely unprotected by the dunes. Behind the farm, towards Golmberg, was a still broader and deeper hollow, but he did not trouble himself about that. If once they reached the farm, which itself stood on higher ground, they would find a road leading from it along the back of the hills straight to Warnow. The Count knew the ground well, he had ridden over it fifty times while hunting.

And now they came to the first hollow. On the right, where the hills opened out, was a wall of surf, whose crest threatened at any moment to topple over. More than one wave must have broken through already, which had left smaller and larger pools in the lowest parts of the ground; evidently not a moment was to be lost. But the Count saw that the passage might be ventured, which was fortunate, as in any case it must be tried.

"Follow me boldly, Carla!" he cried, as he again rode forward.

Carla answered not a syllable.

"It is all over between us," said the Count to himself; "she will never forgive me as long as she lives."

They rode on quickly, and had already reached the middle of the hollow, when the Count saw to his horror that the wall of surf, which had stood in the opening of the dunes, was in movement and seemed to be advancing towards them. For one moment he thought it was a delusion of his excited imagination, but only for a moment.

"On! for heaven's sake, on!" he cried, urging his exhausted horse to its utmost speed with whip and spur. He did not look round, he dared not look behind him; he knew from the fearful roar that the wave had flung itself far inland--behind him!

The panting horse staggered up the slope--saved!

He had no need to pull his horse up; it stopped of itself. Carla stopped by his side. How had she got through? He could not tell, and took care not to ask.

And now he looked back.

For a hundred yards at least of the hollow they had crossed, a single stream now carried its dark waters foaming and roaring far inland. The Count saw it with a shudder; there could hardly be a question that the same wave must have broken through above also, on the other side of the Pölitz's farm, and then in all probability the waters would have united behind the farm. If this were the case, only two places of refuge remained--the farm itself, or the lofty dune--called the White Dune--between the two hollows. The dune stood higher, but was farther off, and it was doubtful whether they could reach it as lower fields lay between it and the farm; besides, what would become of them up there?

"We will go to the farm," said he, "if it were only to give the horses a rest in some sort of shelter; they can't get on any farther."

He rode slowly on in front, Carla followed. Her silence made him furious.

"Little fool!" he muttered between his teeth; "at the very moment when I am risking my life for her! And now to go to Pölitz--after the scene we had yesterday!--a pretty wind up to the whole affair--possibly to spend the whole night there!--I thought so!"

He had reached the highest point behind the farm garden, and for the first time could see beyond; the whole immense space between the farm and the Golmberg was one sea of wild waves! The sea must have broken through here even earlier.

He could see now too how the stream behind him had joined on the left with the sea before him. There was no communication possible now between this place and Warnow; they were on a long, narrow island, one end of which was lost in the waters towards Warnow, and whose highest point was the White Dune, though it was probably divided again between the farm and the hill.

The Count did not consider the position to be absolutely dangerous, but it was confoundedly disagreeable; and all on account of this mute, perverse young lady, who apparently honoured him with her hatred as thanks for all that he had done for her!

The Count was in a desperate frame of mind, as they now turned the corner of the outhouses towards the entrance to the farmyard. A man, whose rough hair was being blown wildly about his head by the wind, was vainly exerting his giant strength to shut the great wooden gate, the left half of which--the right was already bolted--was fixed to the wall as if by iron clamps by the force of the gale.

"I will help you, Pölitz!" called the County "only let us through first!"

The farmer, who had not heard them coming, let go the door which he had just freed, and sprang into the gateway, where he stood with his gigantic form in his torn clothes, his dishevelled hair, his face convulsed with despair and now with furious anger, and his bleeding hand clenched--a terrible vision to the Count's guilty conscience.

"Come, be reasonable, Pölitz!" he cried.

"Back!" cried the farmer, catching hold of the horse's bridle. "Back! we will die alone! Back with your mistress! I have got one of yours already here!"

The man had thrust back the horse with such violence that it almost fell. The Count pulled it up by a tremendous effort, so that it sprang forward. Pölitz started back to seize the pickaxe with which he had been working, and which lay behind him on the wall of the outhouse. At the same moment the unfastened half of the door was shut between him and those outside with such appalling violence, that the whole door was shattered as if it had been made of glass, and as its splinters fell, the beams of the falling roof of the barn crashed down just in front of the horses, who started back in mad terror, and turning short round, dashed across a fallow-field to the pollarded willows which used to stand at the edge of the common, but behind which now eddied the turbid waters of the invading flood; then turning off to the right, led by their instinct, they followed the field to the dune which rose in dusky whiteness before them. To have guided them would have been impossible, even if the terrified riders could have thought of such a thing. They were carried as if by the storm itself to the foot of the hill. The panting horses climbed and climbed, and pressed deeper into the sand, which gave way under their hoofs and rolled down into the stream, which rushed from one hollow to the other where a moment before had lain the fallow field between hill and farm.

Carla's horse fell. The Count urged his on a few paces farther, and threw himself from the saddle at the instant when the animal under him fell like a lifeless thing--perhaps really lifeless--into the depths below. With hands and feet he worked his way up, up! cursing his ill luck that had led him to the steepest part, and yet not daring to turn farther to the left, since here at least there was grass and scrub to cling to, while there the smooth sand offered no hold. Drops of anguish trickled from his brow into his eyes--he could see nothing more, could only hear the roaring of the sea as it broke on the other side of the hill, as a confused ringing in his ears. He gained the summit and staggered forward, as his groping hands found no resistance, gathered himself up again, and looked wildly round him.

There, not far from him, lay a dark object.

Was it Carla? How came she here? Dead?

The dark object moved. He tottered forward to her side.

"Carla!"

She raised herself to her knees and stared fixedly at him, as he bent down to lift her up.

But hardly had his hand touched her, than she started up and away from him.

"Wretch!" she shrieked, "I too will die alone! Back to your other mistress! You have one already at the farm!"

She laughed wildly, and the wind, which had carried away her hat, blew her long hair about her, some locks crossing her deadly-white face, distorted now to a ghastly smile.

"She is mad!" muttered the Count, drawing back as far as he could. He could have wished it had been farther. They were on a miserably small strip of ground, which in the centre was shaped like a trough, with sides which yesterday had been at least five feet high, with sharp clear edges, and which the storm had already reduced to two or three feet of smooth surface. How long would it be before the last hand's breadth of sand remaining would be blown into the trough, and they would be left without the smallest shelter, even supposing that the flood did not rise above the summit?

And should neither of these things happen--should this point remain unsubmerged--the Count shuddered again and again. How could poor human nature endure it all--the driving storm, the torrents of spray which were unceasingly flung up over the hill, the long long night which now began to close in? Already his keen eyes could only just distinguish through the grey mist the dim outlines of the Golmberg, which was hardly a mile off. Wissow Head had entirely disappeared; the farm itself, barely three hundred yards from him, seemed every moment to sink deeper in the water, which, as far as his eye could reach, covered fields and meadows far inland, perhaps even as far as Warnow, which only appeared at intervals out of the mist like a phantom castle. To the right, the thundering, raging, roaring sea, around him the surf creeping higher and higher up the dune, and here and there sending up columns of spray over the already covered line of hills. And there--now seeming so close to him that he drew back in terror, and in the next moment so far off that she might have been on the Golmberg--the dark, motionless figure of the woman whose lips had clung to his only an hour before--no, no! no living, loved woman, but a spectre risen from depths of horror, and sitting there, crouched together, immovable, only to drive him mad!

And the wretched man cried aloud in his agony, and clasped his hands before his face and sobbed and whimpered like a child.