An hour later the investigating Judge was informed that the prisoner had committed suicide in his cell. How he had contrived to procure the knife with which he stabbed himself to the heart could not be discovered. The bitter opponents of the government and of the court in Laibach maintained that it had been conveyed to him for the purpose of suicide, in order that the court might be relieved from the necessity of presenting before a jury a Slavonic patriot and fellow-countryman as a murderer.
"Since the Judge's suicide may be regarded as a confession," the doctor wrote, "we are momentarily awaiting the liberation of our Franz. We--the good Burgomaster, the Captain and myself--are burning with eagerness to conduct the liberated man in triumph to Luttach. I will tell you by telegram when we may be expected."
The lovely little Anna was paying me a visit when I received the doctor's letter. We read it together. Tears of joy filled her eyes as we came to the end.
"I would rather," she said, "have Franz come back quietly, without any public demonstration; but the good doctor is right; there ought to be some atonement for the unjust disgrace of his arrest, and this must be made by an honourable reception."
All the men of the round table in the "Golden Vine" were of the same opinion.
In the evening, more carried than supported by Mizka and Frau Franzka, I ventured to leave my room and to take my place once more at the round table. I was received with extravagant delight. When I read aloud to the company there assembled the letter from the doctor, they declared unanimously that all Luttach must combine in making brilliant amends to Franz. It was remarkable how one single day had changed the mood of every one. Mosic, Weber, Meyer, Gunther, and Dietrich, hitherto the most violent opponents of "the German," were now the most zealous to obliterate all remembrance of their opposition. They could not praise Franz sufficiently, and gravely maintained that they never had believed in his guilt.
The telegram arrived on the morning of the next day, announcing that our friends would arrive in Luttach towards noon. I sent it to the Vice-Burgomaster, who had begged me to give him the earliest intelligence, that he might spread it through the town.
The time for festal preparation was short, but it was used diligently in bringing loads of oaken boughs from the grove on the Rusina, in making wreaths and garlands wherewith Schorn's house and the "Golden Vine" were decorated, for Franz was to be conducted first to the "Golden Vine," where in the garden a cask of the best wine was to be broached, and the Vice-Burgomaster was to welcome him in the name of his Luttach fellow-citizens and to express the joy that all felt in his return, as they drank to his health and welfare. And thus it verily happened. All Luttach was astir by ten o'clock. There were crowds on the road to Adelsberg and on the square before the court house and in the street before the "Golden Vine." When the carriages--two of them--at last came in sight, Franz was sitting in the first with the Burgomaster, while in the second the doctor drove with the Captain. They were greeted with deafening applause and the crowd rushed towards them, all striving to be the first to extend a welcome to Franz Schorn. It was impossible for the carriage to proceed through the crowded streets, when suddenly a stentorian voice exclaimed:
"Make way!"
It was the voice of the gigantic Rassak. He dextrously unharnessed the horses, and, seizing the pole himself, assisted by two savage-looking fellows--the very ones who, a couple of days before, would have been willing to kill the "murderer" and the "German dog"--on they went to the "Golden Vine." A dozen men helped to pull and push the vehicle, while Franz kept bowing and smiling in grateful acknowledgment of the shouts of welcome. The carriage stopped before the gateway of the hotel. Franz would have descended, but strong arms lifted him to Rassak's shoulders, and thus he was carried into the garden. The doctor, the Burgomaster and the Captain followed, laughing. The festal programme was carried out in the garden, except that the Burgomaster's speech and one cask of wine did not suffice. Speech followed speech, and I should have had a fine opportunity of admiring the Slavonic eloquence, if I could have understood a word of it all, but, unfortunately, the words were all Slavonic, even those in which Franz thanked the assembly for its sympathetic welcome. I could only guess at what he said from the shouts of applause. It was a stormy occasion and, after a fashion, a brilliant one, but it was not exactly a comfortable festival. This we had in the evening at the house of the doctor. My presence there, pretty little Anna declared, was quite indispensable, and so Rassak carried me thither on his burly shoulders. I could not possibly have walked. The doctor had invited only the Burgomaster, the Captain, the Clerk and myself to share in the joy of this first evening of the reunion of the betrothed pair and to be the witnesses of their happiness.