Hours of labor were still needed at the scene of the fire. Here and there forks of flame shot up again and had to be extinguished, the area covered by the conflagration had to be isolated, and the ever-flowing streams of the Radefeld aqueduct had to be cut off.
Day had already dawned, when it was finally possible to dismiss the people, only retaining a sufficient number of men to act as a guard. All had done their utmost, vying with one another in courage and endurance; now the men waited for their chief, exhausted as they were from their long labors, with faces blackened by smoke and their clothes dripping wet. All eyes were silently and questioningly fastened upon him, as he now stepped into their midst, his voice, although full of deep feeling, was audible to a great distance.
"I thank you, children! I shall never forget you and what you have done for me this night. You gave me warning that you had quit work, and I wanted to forbid your taking it up again. Now, you have worked for me and my Odensburg, and so I think"--here he suddenly held out both hands to an old workman with hoary head, who stood close before him--"we'll stay together now, and work together as we have done for the past thirty years!"
And in the hearty shout of rejoicing that rang forth from all quarters ended the strike at Odensburg.
CHAPTER XXVI.
[HOW FORCES THAT ARE OPPOSED MAY BLEND.]
More than two years had elapsed since that stormy night when the conflagration had raged at the Odensburg works, but out of the wind and fire of that period, which had threatened everything with annihilation, had come forth new life and activity.
Those occurrences, which had then affected Dernburg's family circle as seriously as they had done his position as lord of Odensburg, had gradually retreated into the background, although, for a long while, they had shown their pregnant results. On the day after the fire, the charred remains of Oscar von Wildenrod had been found. His magnanimous action--of which there could be no doubt--was everywhere admired; only Dernburg and Egbert knew, while a few of the formerly initiated suspected, that a stained and abandoned life had been atoned for by this voluntary self-immolation. For all the rest, the memory of the Baron remained pure, laid to rest as he had been in the family burying-ground by Eric's side, and beneath the rustling fir-trees of the Odensburg park.
The universal impression continued to be that the fire had been the work of an incendiary, but the proof of this had not been found, and was not to be, either. Fallner, to whom one suspicious circumstance pointed, had left Germany, to escape the prosecution impending over him, on account of his murderous assault upon Runeck. Since all these events had acquired a publicity that was altogether undesirable, they wanted, by all means, to avoid being forced into notice again through a lawsuit.
On this point Dernburg and his opponents were fully agreed.