"God be with you, Mr. Sandow!" began the leader, with the touching German salutation, usual in his province, and with a strong, harsh provincial accent. "We are thankful to find Germans here, with whom we can speak an honest word. At your office where we at first sought you, we were ordered here and there, and were quite bewildered, till fortunately your brother appeared. He immediately took our part, and has been very rough with the agent who would not let us see you. But he was right then, for long ago we lost all confidence in the whole band."
Sandow rose; he felt the storm approach, and cast a threatening, reproachful glance at the brother who had thus entangled him. But the merchant well knew that he must not allow the strangers to have any idea of his position, but must preserve his usual business air. He asked--
"What do you want with me, and what am I to advise you upon?"
The peasant looked at his two companions as if he expected them to speak, but as they remained silent and made energetic signs for him to continue, he alone replied--
"We have fallen into a horrible trap, and know no way out of it. Before leaving Germany we were recommended to Jenkins and Company, and on arriving in New York were received by their agent. They promised us a mine of wealth, and at their office one seemed to believe that in the far west lay an earthly paradise. But on the way here we accidentally met a few Germans, who had been several years in America, and they told another tale. They bade us beware of this Jenkins and his western paradise. He was a regular cutthroat, and had already brought many to misery. We should all be ruined in his forests, and what all his other fine things might be. Then we felt stunned! The agent, who was travelling in another compartment, was furious when we plainly told him what we had heard, but as I said before, we had lost all confidence in him, and wished to consider the thing again before we travelled so many more hundred miles westward."
Gustave, who stood beside Jessie, listened with apparent calm. She looked rather frightened; she did not know all the circumstances, but could easily feel that this meant more than an ordinary business affair.
Frida, on the other hand, listened with breathless excitement to the words which bore such singular resemblance to those which, weeks ago, she had spoken to her father. But what could he have to do with this emigration scheme?
"We were directed to your bank, Mr. Sandow," continued the man, "for the signing the contract and payment for the land. We heard in the neighbourhood that you were a German, and indeed out of our own province. Then I called together the others and said, 'Children, now there is no more difficulty; we will go to our countryman and lay the thing before him. He is a German, so will, no doubt, have a conscience, and will not send his fellow-countrymen to their destruction!'"
If Sandow had not before realised to the full extent, what a sin his speculation was, he learnt it in this hour, and the simple, true-hearted words of the peasant burnt into his soul, as the bitterest reproaches could not have done.
It was torture that he endured, but the worst was to come. Frida crept to his side. He did not look at her at that moment, he could not, but he felt the anxious, imploring look, and the trembling of the hand which clasped his own.