The count’s features brightened.
“Ah, you see that we advance from victory to victory. Have we his papers? Above all, have we that iron casket?”
“I regret to inform your Grace that the murder was not committed by our people. He was killed and robbed upon Urchtal Sands, and the deed is attributed to Hans of Iceland.”
“Hans of Iceland!” repeated his master, his brow again clouding. “What! that famous brigand whom we meant to put in charge of our rebellion?”
“The same, noble Count; and I fear, from what I can gather, that it will be no easy task to find him. At any rate, I have secured a leader who will take his name, and can replace him if necessary,—a wild mountaineer, tall and strong as an oak, fierce and bold as a wolf in a wilderness of snow, this terrible giant must surely look much like the real Hans of Iceland.”
“Then Hans of Iceland is tall?” inquired the count.
“That is the general opinion, your Grace.”
“I cannot but admire, my dear Musdœmon, the art with which you lay your plans. When is the insurrection to break out?”
“Oh, very soon, your Grace; perhaps it is on foot even now. The royal protectorate has long been odious to the miners; they all grasped with joy at the idea of revolt. The movement will begin at Guldbrandsdal, extend to Sund-Moer, and reach Kongsberg. Two thousand miners can be raised in three days. The rebellion will be kindled in Schumacker’s name; our emissaries use no other. The reserve forces in the South and the garrisons at Throndhjem and Skongen can be called out, and you will be here on the spot most opportunely to put down the rebellion,—a fresh and significant service in the eyes of the king,—and to rid him of this Schumacker, the source of such anxiety to the throne. Upon these firm foundations will rise the structure to be crowned by the marriage of our noble lady Ulrica and Baron Thorwick.”
A private interview between two scoundrels is never long, because all that is human in their souls quickly takes alarm at the infernal qualities revealed. When two depraved spirits mutually display their naked vices, each is disgusted by the other’s iniquity. Crime itself revolts at crime; and two evil-doers conversing, with all the cynicism of intimacy, of their pleasures and their interests, are like a fearful mirror, each reflecting the other’s monstrous features. Their own degradation mortifies them when seen in another, their own pride confounds them, their own nothingness alarms them; and they cannot fly from themselves or disavow their own portrait in their fellowman; for each odious harmony, each frightful coincidence, each hideous parallel finds within them an untiring voice to denounce them in their ever-wearied ear. However secret may be their intercourse, it has always two intolerable witnesses,—God, whom they cannot see, and conscience, which they feel.