"But those are uncommon horses."
Claus laughed.
"And that's exactly why I don't trouble myself. They can't stand it; and then they are afraid of the air-holes. In a few minutes you will see they will fall behind, or I will eat Fox alive."
Perhaps Fox was afraid of the terrible fate with which he was threatened if he should allow himself to be overtaken, and made desperate efforts; perhaps Cloten's horses began really to be tried by this unusual chase on the smooth ice, or to be frightened by the black water of the air-holes; at all events, Clauses prophecy began to become true almost as soon as he had uttered it. Although it was dawning brighter and brighter on the horizon, the black spot became perceptibly smaller and less distinct; and when at last the full moon rose over the gray edge of the ice, and poured her pale light over the vast level plain, the black spot was no longer to be seen on the white surface.
"Well, didn't I tell you?" asked Claus, turning round and showing his white teeth, "that there isn't a horse that can overtake Fox? Up, Fox!"
Claus had turned round towards his horse. On, on they flew, with the swiftness of an arrow, over the low thundering abyss, past the weird glittering of waters, on which the pale moon cast an uncanny sheen. The icy north wind whistled around their ears as it swept mournfully and plaintively over the snow-covered fields. Oswald and Emily held each other in close embrace. Glad to have escaped the danger, they enjoyed the bliss of a love whose sweet flowers they were gathering on the brink of a fearful abyss, and willingly forgot for a few moments how deep that abyss was, and how full of unspeakable horrors.
CHAPTER V.
It was March. On the twenty-fourth of February the Republic had been proclaimed in France. The grand event spread its effect in concentric circles over the whole of the civilized earth. Berlin too had been excited, and a feverish agitation had prevailed for a few days in all circles of society--a kind of confusion, of nervous trembling, such as befalls men when they are suddenly roused from deep sleep by a dazzling light, and do not know exactly where to find their head; and at the same time they feel a secret horror of the night in which they have so long slept an unnatural sleep--a confused idea that, after all, the golden light of the sun is a very precious thing; a hopeful expectant stretching and moving in all their limbs, so that the watchmen, who have kept and guarded the gigantic sleeper in his dreams, become anxious to begin to converse with each other. "We will have to put him in iron chains," they whisper, "or he may actually rise; and then, woe unto us!"
There was a lively time one fine bright evening at the "Booths," the principal resort of respectable citizens, who were in the habit of amusing themselves here on Sunday afternoons with wife and child by enjoying a mixture of music, beer, and sausages; but any one who had at all followed the events of the last days in the great city might have doubted for a moment whether this was a political meeting or a popular entertainment. Perhaps it meant both. Work, that strict task-master, had been cheated out of an hour only; and the simple fact that such masses were here assembled, which no police constable would readily dare interrupt or trouble, aroused in the assembled crowds a sense of exuberant self-respect, a very unusual festive excitement. Then the blue sky of early spring looked so lovely; the slender, leafless branches and twigs of the trees in the park were so clearly defined against the clear background, and the evening sun was shining warm and hopeful down upon the thousands who crowded the vast open space between the coffee-houses and the river on one side, and the park on the other side. The pressure was especially great near the wooden stand on the edge of the park, which was ordinarily occupied by a band, but from whence to-day a very novel kind of music was heard--a music which was so strange to the people, and perhaps on that account far more attractive than all the waltzes of Lanner or Strauss. Further off, towards the coffee-houses, where the speakers could no longer be heard distinctly, people seemed to be merrier. Here the waiters could scarcely hurry up as many glasses of the favorite white beer as thirsty gullets were clamoring for. Itinerant venders offered rolls and sausages, half-grown boys praised their cigars with gosling voices, and even jugglers and acrobats played their tricks.
Two men were slowly making their way arm in arm through the heaving crowd. Their appearance was signally different from that of the mass of the people, which consisted mainly of men, especially young men, of the lower classes. One of the two was very tall and thin; his gray eyes looked so keen and bright from under the heavy brows, and around the well-shaped straight nose there was so much life and meaning, that one could very easily supply the lower part of the face, which was completely covered with a close black beard. His carriage was careless, like that of a man who is too busy with his thoughts to lay much stress upon external forms; and his clothes, which were made after the last fashion, and of the very best material, hung so easily and comfortably on his spare form that one could easily see the owner believed in the doctrine that clothes were made for men, and not men for clothes. The appearance of his companion was perhaps even more striking. He was nearly a head shorter than his tall friend, but much broader in the shoulders. And yet he stooped like a man who has spent half of his life in reading books. His large well-shaped brow, and his deep, meek, dreamy eyes, also bespoke the scholar, the thinker. His hair, which he wore rather long, was already nearly gray, and so were the bushy eyebrows, and the beard, which flowed in abundant masses from cheeks, lips, and chin, down to his waist. He glanced restlessly at the crowd, and communicated his observations to his companion with a passionate energy, which characterized his whole manner; the other simply smiling, nodded his head, or replied in a few short words to the point.