“Let the man go,” said the minister; “you are strangling him. He is not in a condition to answer you.”
“I am not strangling him at all,” replied Christian, who, in fact, had taken great pains not to endanger the fellow’s life, since he was in possession of important secrets which he wished to discover.
Meanwhile, the cunning Johan took advantage of M. Akerstrom’s kindness. Unwilling to reply, he pretended to faint. The minister blamed Christian for his brutality; and the servants, who one and all felt very uneasy about their own fate if the redressers of wrongs should begin their office, seemed much more inclined to defend their comrade than to submit to the authority of an unknown.
When a sufficient number of Johan’s adherents had gathered around him to enable him to resume his audacity, he quickly recovered his consciousness, and cried out in a resounding voice, that was heard above the tumult of the apartment:
“Monsieur Minister, I denounce an intriguant and an impostor, who has come here with an infernal forged romance to pass himself off as the only heir of the barony. You hate me!” he added, addressing the heirs; “very good! give me up to his vengeance; and now that the master is dead, you will no longer have any one to baffle the infamous machinations of M. Goefle; for he it is who has brought forward this chevalier d’industrie, and who boasts that he will make his rights prevail over all of yours.”
If a thunderbolt had fallen upon them it could not have produced greater terror and consternation in the persons present, than Johan’s words; but, as he had anticipated, this first stupor was followed by a sudden reaction. Christian tried to speak—for the physician called upon him to justify or to explain himself—but his voice was drowned in a chorus of insults and maledictions.
“Drive him out! drive him out ignominiously!” cried the cousins and nephews of the deceased.
“No no!” cried Johan, supported by his accomplices, who understood perfectly well that the day of revelations had come, and that it was necessary to reduce the avengers to silence. “Make him a prisoner! To the tower with him! To the tower!”
“Yes, yes, to the tower with him!” bellowed the Baron de Lindenwald, who was perhaps the keenest in the hunt, and the most rapacious of all the heirs.
“No, kill him!” cried Johan, venturing everything to gain his end.