CHAPTER IX.
THE CASTLE OF SAGAN.
The broadly flowing Kofn forms part of the north-eastern boundary of the State of Maäsau. Its dark waters rush tumultuously from the gorge below the Castle of Sagan, and fling a vast enclosing arm about the bleak plains and marshes of which the wastes of the frontier consist.
It is a land where even summer dwells coldly.
To the north a chain of hills rises black against the sky, and there, set upon a boldly jutting spur, the Castle of Sagan dominates the inhospitable landscape like a frown upon a sinister face.
The whole spur and the hill behind it are rough with ragged pine-woods, and, below, the banks shelve to the river with a broken scattering of deciduous trees, that leave on the eye the chill impression of leafless branches tangled against a background of grey and stony slopes.
Some two or three miles south of the Castle the river breaks across a step-like outcrop of rock, and thus forms that famous ford, across which the Counts of Sagan used in the old days to lead their foraging expeditions over the border.
Simon of Sagan, the present Count, inherited in an unmodified degree the more predatory and uncivilized instincts of his forefathers. Illiterate, brutal, and cunning, the thin veneer laid by the nineteenth century upon his coarse-grained nature was apt to rub off on the very slightest friction, bringing the original savage to the surface.
He was at once the terror and the pride of the stolid, silent peasantry that lived under his rule. A fierce and fearless sportsman, his dependents delighted in boasting of the prowess of a master whose capricious cruelties they never dreamed of resenting. With Sagan, throughout life, to desire was to have, and in his pursuit of the wished-for object, he was hampered by no new-fangled sentiments of honour, truth, or loyalty. Like other savages he quickly tired of his fancies when once gratified. Not four years ago he had been possessed by a frantic passion for the beautiful young wife whom he had now come to regard with something dangerously near hate.