Hearing this the soldier opened the sack; but, hardly set free, the spectre again rushed at his throat, so that he had barely time to call out, “Pack yourself in the sack.”
Now, being again in his power, the ghost was forced to confess to the soldier that in these walls there were concealed many barrels containing treasures, and over these it was his mission to watch. It promised to make over in writing a portion of this money to the veteran, and for this purpose begged to have its arms released from the sack in order to sign the document.
This being granted, the ghost a third time attempted the soldier’s life, who, however, used the magic formula once more, and, determined to show no further mercy to his antagonist, cut off the head of the treacherous phantom.
BARON SAMUEL BRUCKENTHAL.
Next morning the inhabitants of Hermanstadt were greatly astonished to find the soldier still alive, and the praise of his valor was in every mouth. Under his directions the walls were now broken open, and within many little barrels were discovered, all containing heavy gold, of which the brave soldier received a handsome portion, sufficient to enable him to live in comfort to the end of his days.
It is to this discovery that many impute the great riches of the Bruckenthal family, and were it not for the valiant soldier the fortune they left behind them would hardly have been so great.
Though the name of Bruckenthal is probably but little known outside Transylvania, and I have failed to find it in several German encyclopædias, yet here it is a word pregnant with meaning; and people at Hermanstadt are wont to swear by the Bruckenthal palace as the most stable and immutable object within their range of knowledge, just as an Egyptian might swear by the Pyramids or the Sphinx. “May you be lucky as long as the Bruckenthal palace stands,” or “Sooner may the Bruckenthal palace fall down than such and such an event come to pass,” are phrases I have frequently had occasion to hear.
But the memories of the Bruckenthals are not confined to the palace which bears their name. Every vestige of past grandeur or remnant of an extinct luxury, each work of art which comes to light in or about Hermanstadt, may be traced back to this once omnipotent family. If in your country walks you come upon a double row of massive lime-trees, twelve or sixteen perhaps, standing forlorn on the grass, with nothing to explain their presence on a lonely meadow, you are surely informed that these are the last survivors of a stately avenue leading to spacious orangeries in the Bruckenthal time. The orangeries have now disappeared, yet these few old trees linger on with senseless persistency—their snowy blossoms reminding one of powdered heads, their circling branches suggesting wide-hooped skirts setting to each other in the evening breeze, like an ancient quadrille party forgotten in the ball-room, long after the other guests have departed.
If you find an old statue chipped and moss-grown, dreaming away in the shade of a rose-bush which soon will stifle it in thorny embrace, you may take for granted that you are standing on the site of a former Bruckenthal garden.