"What came after that," he concludes, "can be told in a few words. I ran without knowing whither, until the cold and wet restored me to consciousness. Then the post-chaise from Marienfeld just happened to come along. I stopped it--at last I got under cover by this means. Thus I came to the town, where I have been putting up till now. Lob Levi had just given me a hundred thalers. With these I rigged myself out afresh, for I did not want to face Trude in the dilapidated state I was in."
"Miserable wretch--are you going to ...?"
"Don't kick up a row," he says roughly. "It is all arranged, already. I gave a note for her to a little boy I met in the street, and waited till he came back. She took it from him in the kitchen without even a servant noticing anything. At eleven o'clock she will be at the weir, and I--ha-ha-ha- ... I too!"
"Johannes, I beg and implore you, don't do it," cries Franz in sheer terror. "There's sure to be a misfortune." Johannes' reply is a hoarse laugh, and, with burning eyes, his mouth put close to his friend's ear, he hisses: "Do you really think, man, that I could manage to live and to die in a strange country if I did not see her just once more? Do you imagine I should have courage to stare for four weeks at the sea without throwing myself into it--if I did not see her once more? The very air for breathing would fail me, my meat and drink would stick in my throat, I should rot away alive if I did not see her just once more!"
When Franz hears all this he refrains from further discussion.
Johannes' restless glance wanders towards the clock. "It is time," he says, and takes his cap. "At midnight the mail-coach comes through the village. Expect me at the post office and bring me two hundred-thaler notes; that will be enough for my passage. The rest you can give back to him; I shan't want it! Good-bye till then!" At the door he turns round and asks: "I say, does my breath smell of brandy?"
"Yes."
He breaks into a coarse laugh; then he says: "Give me a few coffee beans to chew. I don't want Trude to get a horror of me in this last hour."
And when Franz has given him what he wants he disappears into the darkness.
It is high water to-day. With a great hissing and roaring the waters shoot down the declivity, then sink down into their foaming grave with dull, plaintive rumblings, while the glistening spray breaks over them in one high-vaulted arch.