She could not be still. Her gayety sparkled and bubbled forth in a continual stream of bright sayings and musical, silvery laughter, for was she not bound for the land that held her darling? And perhaps she might by some chance meet him there! It should be no fault of hers if she did not; and she knew their hearts would speak for themselves when that happy day should arrive; and she felt earth could hold no greater joy for her than to be again clasped to his loving, throbbing heart as in days of yore, and to feel that nothing earthly could ever again separate them.
Many wondered at this bright, innocent beauty’s excessive life and joy that day, and many envious glances were drawn toward the group that was such a host of pleasure in itself.
On the opposite side of the deck stood a man wrapped in a large traveling cloak, and with a hat slouched and drawn down over a pair of piercing black eyes.
At his side stood another clad in like manner, only his hair was white, and he had a disagreeable stoop in his shoulders.
Both these men were engaged in a low, muttering conversation, while at the same time they cast baleful looks upon the party opposite, who little dreamed of the phantoms of evil lurking in their path, tracking their every footstep, and vowing eternal vengeance.
CHAPTER XI.
THE MIDNIGHT VISIT.
Late one night, while the wind was howling dismally, and the rain poured down in torrents, a carriage drawn by a pair of noble but weary and dripping horses, drew up before an inn in the village of ——, Germany.
Two men alighted, and muttering discontentedly about the storm, hastened within the friendly shelter of the inn.
It was not a first-class inn. All those were already filled to overflowing by the crowds who thronged the place to be present on the morrow at the commencement exercises of —— Institute.
The house before which our travelers had stopped, although clean and moderately well kept, was one in which the middle and lower classes collected every night to drink their beer, smoke their meerschaums and chat a while around the fire, which always burned brightly in the public room.