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!"