Wenk said to himself, “She does not know who I am.”
“Get in! He’s going to make the trip with us, and we haven’t a third seat. Come along quickly, now!” cried Mabuse.
Wenk saw Mabuse’s arm seize the woman and lift her into the gondola, then he himself got in, making use of Wenk’s body as a step, and when he was settled in the pilot’s seat, not two fingers’ breadth above Wenk, he bent down to him and said in a harsh tone, “The gentleman is going to accompany us on our journey—but whither? Good luck!—All ready?” he called out to the men.
“All quite ready, sir!”
The propeller hummed and the aeroplane glided along the course so swiftly that the very moment Wenk felt the throbbing of the engine its wheels were already clear of the ground and the earth vanished from his sight. The machine soared upwards steeply, and it seemed to Wenk as if his body were standing upright. No word was spoken in the car. The air beat so heavily upon him that it seemed like flying wood, and he soon began to feel bitterly cold. The cold seemed to cut through the wide opening of his evening suit and strike at his very heart. He felt that it pressed ever deeper and deeper within him, like revolving knives. His hair was stiff and stood on end, and it seemed as if needles were pricking him all over. He had lost all capability of thought, save for one idea. It dimly occurred to him that he was enduring martyrdom, and that this martyrdom was on account of the Countess Told, whom he had once loved, at a time when such love was not lawful.
Then he felt the blow of a fist on his head, and a harsh voice asked, “Is twelve thousand feet high enough for you?” A few moments later he heard, “Or are you already dead—of fright?”
The voice died away and Wenk felt that the aeroplane was being righted. When it was flying level, a hand touched his head, hastily tearing away his bonds. Then Wenk saw the face of Mabuse bending over him. He was silent, but his features were distorted with a malicious joy which aroused horror. His grey eyes had neither shape nor pupils; they were like old weather-beaten stones, and, as Wenk recognized with a shudder, they were glowering death at him. Then the capacious mouth opened like the yawning chasm in a rocky gorge, and the harsh voice said, “You have dared to oppose your will against mine. You are now facing your last moment, and I have taken the gag from your mouth so that my ears may enjoy the shriek with which you fall twelve thousand feet down to your own world!”
Wenk heard his voice, and it sounded like thunder rolling along after the lightning flash. He saw that Mabuse was loosening the bonds that held his legs. He tugged and tore at them. Suddenly his legs were free. For a moment they fell, then the leash that was bound round his hips held them again, and the hands were now busy with this. In a few seconds it was untied.
In his further fall Wenk’s body regained an upright position, held only by the noose which bound his chest to the wall of the car. He suddenly felt that his hands were free, and at this feeling he was fired with a sudden hope. In the midst of his fantasies there surged upwards like a fairy story the recollection of the Countess’s beauty and sympathy. He had never forgotten her, and now in the last moment of his life, when she herself was so close to him, his feeling for her, exalted to an undying and compassionate brotherhood, was wafted as a cloud beyond the savage and brutal murderer, to envelop the frail human being beside him with indomitable pride and courage.
Wenk saw her eyes, fluttering like birds shot down in the clear blue ether, glance for a moment beyond and above Mabuse’s eager bent head. … He saw her hands, tearing off their fur gloves, cling white and trembling to Mabuse’s shoulder as she strove to drag him back from his deadly intent.
But Mabuse shook the woman off, and raised his hands with mad rage to untie the last noose. He tore undone the first of its fastenings, making Wenk’s body sink deeper, and beat away Wenk’s hands, which were seeking to maintain a grip on the edge of the car, with his closed fists.
Then one last defiance of fate, arising from the will to live, lent strength to Wenk’s voice as he shouted in the air, “He is the murderer of Count Told. He made him cheat at cards! He put the razor into his hands that he might cut his throat!”
A fist struck at his mouth, and blood spurted from it, yet at this last moment of his life it seemed as if his very blood were tasting the sweetness of a noble spirit. Then a final effort was made to release him from the bond that held him. A fearful weight pressed on his head, rolled over his body to press him downward. The weight of it was immeasurable, black, imbued with the swiftness of a raging storm. But all at once the iron weight was removed. A part of it became detached from the aeroplane, unrecognizable, and sank. Wenk’s hands held the edge of the car as in a vice. The aeroplane hovered and swayed as if drunken with the high clear air.
This is what had happened:
When Count Told’s name rang through the air, as if thrown from measureless space, it seemed to the Countess as if she were awaking from a dream at the bottom of a swamp. Since the night when she had been torn from her husband and chained to Mabuse’s wicked will, she had never spoken his name, nor even thought
