"You are sure he is there, sir?"
"Sure as that I now address you," continued the Jesuit, from whom I concealed the fierce exultation that, arose within my breast; "but he will soon be discovered, and may Heaven, through the intercession of one more worthy than me, grant him that contrition and forgiveness for the horrors of his past life, which I—by falling into the hands of your very unceremonious patrol—am unable to afford him."
"And would you really have gone to him?" I asked with unfeigned astonishment.
"Bandolo has an immortal soul, as well as yourself, Captain Rollo; and had he slain my own father (and, Heaven knoweth, I loved little Gabrielle like a daughter of my own), it would have been but my duty to visit him when summoned on such an errand."
"What errand?" said I, drawing the buckle of my belt with impatience.
"He believed himself to be dying; and, if free and unfettered, on what plea could I withhold the last sacrament from a repentant sinner—one in articulo mortis, as he most probably is."
"And he is lurking"——
"In a cavern of the rocky isle of Rügen—poor wretch!"
I turned away, lest the simple-hearted priest should read the dark thoughts that flitted through my mind; for he thought that in Rügen, Bandolo was as safe from those in Stralsund, as if he had been among the Norwegian Alps. All that long and terrible debt of vengeance, which time and atrocity had scored up between us, seemed now on the point of being paid off. In the keen exultation of the time, I had only one fear—that Bandolo might die ere I could reach him. Some may deem this sentiment revengeful and unchristian; but let me remind them that Stralsund was not then the school wherein to learn the Christian virtues.
Concealing my future intentions under a mild exterior, after we left Ernestine, and when we walked through the streets towards the house of our preacher, where I intended to billet Father Ignatius, I acquired every necessary information about the isle of Rügen. There were no Imperialists there now; the few inhabitants who had not been shot or driven into the sea, lurked in their half-ruined villages; and the cavern occupied by Bandolo lay among some rocks that overhung the Black Lake, near Stubbenkamer. Poor Father Ignatius, in the perfect simplicity of his heart, gave me all the information I required.