"We left the cavern by night, as soon as Albert was able to sustain himself. At a short distance from the castle we placed him on horseback, and reached the frontier, which is at this place very near, as you know, and where he found more suitable means of transportation. The numerous affiliations of our order with the masonic fraternity procured for us the means of travelling all through Germany, without being recognised or subjected to the scrutiny of the police. Bohemia, in consequence of the recent events at Prague, was the only country where we were in danger. There the surveillance of the Austrian authorities was very rigid."
"And what became of Zdenko?" asked the young Countess of Rudolstadt.
"Zdenko nearly ruined us by his obstinate refusal to permit us to go, or, at least, to part with Albert, whom he would not suffer to leave him, and would not follow. He persisted in thinking Albert could live nowhere but in the sad Schreckenstein. 'Nowhere else,' said he, 'is my Podiebrad calm. In other places they torment, and will not let him sleep. They seek to make him deny our fathers at Mount Tabor, and induce him to lead a base and disgraceful life. This exasperates him. Leave him here; I will take good care of him, as I have often done. I will not disturb his meditations, and when he wishes to be silent I will walk without making any noise, and keep Cynabre's muzzle within my hands for two whole hours, to keep him from annoying Podiebrad by licking his fingers. When he is weary I will sing him the songs he loves, for he loves my verses, and is the only person who can understand them. Leave him here. I know what suits him better than you, and when you see him again, he will be playing the violin, or planting the cypress branches, which I will cut in the forest, around the grave of his beloved mother. I will feed him well; I know all the cabins, and no one ever refuses bread, milk, or fruits to good old Zdenko. The poor peasants of the Boehmer-wald, though they do not know it, have long fed their noble master, the rich Podiebrad. Albert does not like feasts, where people eat flesh, but prefers a life of innocence and simplicity. He does not wish to see the sun, but prefers the moonbeams, glancing through the woods in savage places where our good friends, the Zingari, camp at night. They are the children of the Lord, and know neither laws nor riches.'
"I listened to Zdenko with attention, because his innocent words revealed to me the details of the life Albert led with him during his frequent absences in the cavern. 'Do not fear,' said he, 'that I shall ever reveal to his enemies the secret of his abode. They are so false and foolish, that they now say, "our child is dead, our friend is dead, and our master is dead." They would not believe he was alive, even if they were to see him. Besides, do I not reply when, they ask me if I have seen Count Albert, "he is certainly dead." As I laughed when I said this, they thought me mad. I spoke thus to mock them, because they think, or seem to think him dead. When the people of the castle pretend to follow, do I not make a thousand windings to throw them out? All the devices of the hare and partridge are known to me. I know, like them, how to hide in a furrow, to disappear under the brush, to make a false track, to jump over a torrent, to hide myself while they pass by, and, like a will-o'-wisp, to lead them astray in the ponds and morasses. They call me Zdenko the fool. I am more knave, though, than any of them. There was never but one girl, a good, sweet girl, who could get the better of Zdenko. She knew the magic words to soothe his wrath. She had talismans to overcome all perils and dangers. Her name was Consuelo.'
"When Zdenko pronounced your name, Albert shuddered lightly, and looked away. He immediately, however, let his head fall on his breast, and his memory was not aroused.
"I tried in vain to soothe this devoted and blind guardian by promising to restore Albert to Schreckenstein, if he would accompany him to the place whither we proposed to take him. I did not succeed however; and when at last, half by persuasion and half by force, we induced him to suffer my son to leave the cavern, he followed us with tears in his eyes, and singing sadly, as far as the mines of Cuttemberg. When he reached this celebrated spot, where Ziska won his great victory over Sigismund, Zdenko recognised the rocks which marked the frontier, for no one had explored all the paths of the country more closely than he had done in his vagabond career. There he paused and said, stamping on the ground, 'Zdenko will never leave the country where his father's bones rest. Not long ago, I was exiled and banished by my Podiebrad, for having menaced the girl he loved, and I passed weeks and months on a foreign soil. I returned afterwards to my dear forests to see Albert sleep, for a voice in a dream whispered to me that his anger had passed. Now, when he does not curse me, you steal him from me. If you do so to take him to Consuelo, I consent. As for leaving my country now, and speaking the tongue of my enemies again, as for giving them my hand, and leaving Schreckenstein deserted and abandoned, I will not. This is too much. The voices, too, in my dreams have forbid this. Zdenko must live and die in the land of the Sclaves. He must live and die singing Sclavic glory and misfortune in the language of his fathers. Adieu! and go. Had not Albert forbade me to shed human blood, you would not thus take him from me. He would curse me, though, if I lifted my hand on you, and I would rather never see than offend him. Do you hear, oh! Podiebrad,' said he, kissing my son's hand, while the latter looked at and heard but did not understand him. 'I obey you and go. When you return you will find the fire kindled, your books in order, your bed made with new leaves, and your mother's tomb strewed with evergreen leaves. If it be in the season of flowers, there will be flowers on the bones of our martyrs near the spring. Adieu, Cynabre.' As he spoke thus with a broken voice, Zdenko rushed over the rocky ledge which inclined towards Bohemia, and disappeared like a stag at dawn.
"I will not describe, dear Consuelo, our anxiety during the first weeks Albert passed with us. Hidden in the house you now inhabit, he returned gradually to the kind of life we sought to awake in him with care and precaution. The first word he spoke was called forth by musical emotion. Marcus understood that Albert's life was knit to his love of you, and resolved not to awaken the memory of that love until he should be fit to inspire in return the same passion. He then inquired minutely after you, and in a short time ascertained the least details of your past and present life. Thanks to the wise organization of our order, and the relations established with other secret societies, a number of neophytes and adepts, whose functions consist in the scrupulous examination of persons and things that interest us, nothing can escape our investigations. The world has no secrets for us. We know how to penetrate the arcana of politics and the intrigues of courts. Your pure life, your blameless character, were not difficult to be seen. The Baron Von Trenck, as soon as he saw that the man you had loved was his friend Albert, spoke kindly of you. The Count of Saint Germain, one of those men who apparently are absent-minded as possible, yet who in fact is most discriminating, this strange visionary, this superior being, who seems to live only in the past, while nothing that is present escapes him, furnished us with the most complete information in relation to you. This was of such a character that henceforth I looked on you as my own child.
"When we were sufficiently well informed to act with certainty we sent for skillful musicians who came beneath the window where we now sit. Albert was where you are, and leaned against the curtain watching the sunset. Marcus held one of his hands and I the other. Amid a symphony composed expressly for the four instruments, in which we had inserted several of the Bohemian airs Albert sings with such religion and enthusiasm, we made them play the hymn to the Virgin with which you once so delighted him—
Consuelo de mi alma.
"At that moment, Albert, who hitherto had exhibited a faint emotion at our old Bohemian songs, threw himself in my arms, and shedding tears, said—'My mother!'