Then they breathed freely again, as from a single troubled soul, relieved from its anxiety; and "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" was heard as from a single throat, so that it sounded above the howling storm. The boat might vanish in the dark! But they knew that the man at the helm understood his business, and the six at the oars understood their business, too; it would come back again, bringing with it those rescued from the storm and flood!
The setting sun was just above the hills. In its magic light gleamed the surface of the water which covered the great semicircle between Golmberg and Wissow Hook. The slanting golden rays sent their blinding light into the eyes of Reinhold, who was just steering his boat from the sea into the bay, close past the White Dune, upon the steep side of which the long in-rolling wave was curling, while the boat swept past by its broad crest, and the points of the uniformly rising and falling oars almost touched the edge. The glances of the men who plied the oars were directed toward the Dune as they glided on, and the scene of rescue on the night of the storm was surely in the minds of all; but not one of them said a word.
Not because it was against discipline. They knew that the Commander allowed a modest word at the right time, even when he was, as today, in full uniform, and wore the iron cross on his breast; but he had drawn the three-cornered hat far down over his face, and, if he lifted his eyes quickly once more to examine the course, they did not look threatening today; they had not yet seen threats in his eyes, any more than they had heard harsh words from his lips—but lips serious and sad. They did not wish to disturb the Commander in his thoughts—more serious and sad than the brave men might entertain or could comprehend. What were the two people to them whom they had rescued from the peril of death on this Dune, with unspeakable effort and hundredfold mortal peril to each one of them—what were the few people to them whom they had rescued because it was their duty, or the others whom they had already rescued during the day! How the Count and the noble lady got there, what relation the two sustained to each other—why should they ask about that?
But he!
What a shudder went through him when he found the brilliant Carla von Wallbach, whom he had seen dancing and coquetting a few days before, under the light of the candelabra, through the reception room at Warnow—now a picture of extreme misery, her clothes drenched with water, her delicate limbs trembling from the icy cold, with half dazed senses, curled up in a heap scarcely like a human form, and bore her to the boat; with horror he recalled the moment when he laid her down in the boat—how she, awaking from her stupor and recognizing him, had cried out as if mad, "Save me from him, from him!"—and held him, the strange man, anxiously in her grasp, as a child its mother, so that he had to release himself by force! And when the Count, who was in a scarcely less lamentable condition, having been carried by two pilots into the boat and placed near Carla, suddenly staggered up again at the risk of falling overboard, tottered to the bow of the boat and there sat brooding in sullen disdain, disregarding everything that went on about him, until they worked their way to the Pölitz premises and made ready to bring the wretched people through the window of the garret to which they had fled, into the boat—then he sprang up and shrieked like a madman that he did not wish to be packed in with those people, that he would not have it so!—And he belabored those about him until he was deterred by the threat that they would bind him if he did not obey the orders of the Commander—at which he covered his face with his hands, and sullenly swallowed his wrath.
There was the garret, and there was the window opening—they had torn out the window and knocked out a piece of the wall to make room—and Reinhold remembered that he himself had succeeded in rescuing wretched people from this dreadful desolation, that he had been able to carry frail human forms through the storm and blackness into the safe port of the castle, where all danger was over.
The passage from the inundated court to the castle lasted only a few minutes—the storm had hurled the boat before it like a snowflake—but those had been the only moments when his own heart trembled, not with fear, but with tender solicitude. His eyes grew moist as he now recalled it all—the mother who lay in the boat with her little one at her breast, her head upon the knees of her husband, while poor Marie, full of compassion, held the fainting Carla in her arms. How must the wretched man in the bow of the boat have felt at this sight if he once raised his eyes! The raging haste with which he jumped out and rushed away when they touched the landing of the castle to conceal himself somewhere in the darkness—it was Cain fleeing from the dead body of his slain brother.
And Reinhold's thoughts grew still more sad. He had succeeded in the greatest effort of all; he had been permitted to rescue his betrothed from certain death—and with her the unfortunate woman who loved them both, as if they had been her children and whom both loved and honored as a mother. It was indeed such a supreme joy—and yet, yet——?
How dearly this joy had been bought! Was there other joy which must be bought just as dearly? Was there everywhere happiness, with unhappiness so near at hand in its pitiless form, like the blue-black shadows yonder between the turrets and the battlements of the castle, bordered on the brightly illuminated surface? Did not even the apparently firmest ground shake, as here the wave undulates above the fields through which the ploughman formerly drove his plough, over the pasture upon which the shepherd formerly drove his flocks? Did they have to die so young, so beautiful, so richly endowed with the most splendid gifts and talents? And if they had to die because they could no longer live, no longer wished to live, death was for them only a release from inevitable destruction. What a questionable good did life appear to be, when with it is born the possibility of such a horrible fate? How could the two fathers bear it?—With fortitude no doubt—and yet, and yet——?