"I cannot help you, my lady. Now that we are all in arms, one against the other, my own life is hardly safe in the midst of this strife and turmoil, and if once they get to know who you are, my being at your side would be of very little use. There is only one man now they feel any respect for, who can make himself obeyed in case of need, and that is my Ulric. But he hates Herr Berkow mortally, and he hates you too because you are the master's wife. Good God!" broke off the old man suddenly, "here he comes! There has been mischief doing again, I can see it in his face. Go out of his sight just for the present, I implore you."
He pushed her through the half-opened door of the little cottage, and he had hardly done so, when steps and loud voices were heard approaching. Ulric was coming up the road followed by Lawrence and several other miners. His face was crimson, and on his brow lay a thunder-cloud ready at any moment to explode. He was talking excitedly as he came along, and he did not notice his father's presence.
"If they are our mates and our brothers, no matter! Down with them directly they turn traitors to us. We gave our word to stand by each other, and now they crawl up to the old collar like cowards and desert us and our cause. They shall be made to pay for it. Are the shafts well guarded?"
"Yes, but" ...
"I'll have no buts," cried the leader imperiously to the man who would have ventured to hazard an objection. "That was about the one thing wanting, treason in our own camp, just as we are on the eve of victory. They shall be driven back by force, I tell you, if they make the least attempt to go below. We will teach them their duty and their proper place, if they have to learn it at the cost of a few broken heads."
"But there are two hundred of them," said Lawrence gravely, "and to-morrow there may be four--and, if once the master steps in and begins to talk to them--you know how that tells! We have seen it often enough of late."
"If there were four hundred," shouted Ulric, "if half our people were on their side, we would fight them with the other half and beat them too. I'll see if I can't make myself obeyed! But now, forward, lads. Karl, you go over to the works and bring me word if Berkow is meddling in the matter and talking to the men in that cursed way of his, getting hundreds to desert from us again. You others, back to the shafts. See that the way to them is thoroughly blocked, I will come myself presently. Off with you!"
His command was at once obeyed. The miners hurried off in the prescribed directions, and Ulric, seeing now for the first time that his father was standing by, hurried up to him and said,
"You here, father? Why, you ought to be"----all at once he stopped, rooted to the ground; his face grew deadly white, every drop of blood slowly receding from it, and his eyes were fixed and dilated as though he had seen a ghost. Eugénie had come out of the house and was standing before him.
A sudden thought had flashed into the young wife's mind, and instantly she acted on it without staying to reflect on the boldness and the peril of her venture. She was bent on going to her husband at any cost, and now she must overcome the horror with which this man had inspired her ever since she had discovered the true reason of her power over him. She had often put this power to the proof; now the time had come to turn it to account.