"Then all agrees--Martella is your child."
And the man seized my arm as if he would break it, and gave a cry like a felled ox.
After a while, he regained his self-control. We hurried to the village. On the way, he told me that he would now confess to me that he had had a letter from Ernst. He was in Algiers; had entered the army there and had become an officer. He had told me nothing about it, because he had thought it was of no use. Ernst had also given him messages for his betrothed: but he had always kept them to himself. "Spare me all reproaches," he concluded; "I am punished bitterly enough. Oh, if they had only been united! How shall I utter the word 'child,' and how can I listen to the word 'father'?"
When, after leaving the saw-mill, we began to ascend the hill, he called out in a hoarse voice: "It was here, in this spot, that she stepped down from the wagon in the twilight. Here, by this very tree, I heard her voice. It was that of her mother--I could not believe it at the time. Here, by this very tree."
Rothfuss came towards us. "Have you seen her--is she with you?"
"Whom do you mean?"
"She is gone off with Lerz the baker, who has become a sutler. Oh, the damned hound!"
"Who?"
"Martella is gone!"
Rautenkron grasped a young tree by the roadside, and broke it in two; then he sank on his knees. We lifted him up.