“But,” said the general, “if his duty compelled him, do not doubt that Levin de Knud—”
“I do doubt it, noble Governor,” exclaimed Schumacker; “do not doubt in your turn that he would have rejected, with all the generous indignation of his soul, the office of spy, or of increasing the agony of a wretched prisoner! No, I know him better than you; he would never have accepted the duties of an executioner. Now, General, I am at your service; do what you consider your duty. What does your Excellency require of me?”
And the old minister fixed his haughty gaze upon the governor, all whose resolution was gone. His first reluctance had returned, and was not to be overcome.
“He is right,” thought he; “why should I torture an unfortunate man upon mere suspicion? Let some one else undertake the task!”
The effect of these reflections was prompt; he walked up to the astonished Schumacker and pressed his hand. Then he hurriedly left the room, saying: “Count Schumacker, always preserve the same esteem for Levin de Knud.”
XXV.
Lion (roaring). Oh—
Demetrius. Well roared, lion!
Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream.
THE traveller of the present day who visits the snow-clad mountains which surround Lake Miösen like a white girdle, will scarcely find a vestige of what Norwegians of the seventeenth century knew as Arbar ruin. No one was ever able to decide the architectural period or the purpose for which this ruin, if we may give it the name, was built. As you left the forest which covered the southern shore of the lake, after climbing a slope crowned with here and there a fragment of wall or a bit of masonry once a tower, you reached an arched opening leading into the side of the mountain. This entrance, now completely closed by landslips, led into a species of gallery cut in the living rock, and piercing the mountain from side to side.
This tunnel, dimly lighted by conical air-holes made in the arched roof at regular intervals, ended in an oval hall in part excavated from the rock, and terminating in a cyclopean stone wall. Around this hall, in deep niches, were rude images carved from granite. Some of these mysterious figures, which had fallen from their pedestals, lay heaped in confusion on the ground with other shapeless rubbish, covered with grass and weeds, among which crawled lizards, spiders, and all the hideous vermin born of damp earth and ruins.
Daylight penetrated to this place only through a door opposite the mouth of the gallery. This door, viewed in a certain light, was seen to be of pointed construction, of no especial date, and evidently the work of the architect’s whim.