The landlord was so loud and eager in his talk, that he never noticed his wife come in and take the keys of the best rooms upstairs from the board on the door, while the maid took the two brass candlesticks from the cupboard, into which she put candles, and then lighted them and ran after her mistress. He only turned round when someone touched him on the shoulder and asked where he could put up his horses, the ostler said there was no more room.
“No more there is,” said the landlord; “where do you come from?”
“From Neuenfähr; the gentlefolks I brought are upstairs now.”
“Who are they?” asked the landlord. “Don’t know; a young gentleman and a young lady; something out of the common I should think. I couldn’t drive quick enough for ’em; but how’s a man to drive fast in this weather? We came a foot’s pace. Two horses or one made no difference. A one-horse carriage that was behind us might easily have got ahead. It must have been a Warnow trap, it turned to the right as we came to the village.”
“Jochen Katzenow,” said the landlord, “was at Neuenfähr this morning; he’s got a devil of a horse! Well, come along; we’ll see what can be done; but I don’t think we can manage it.”
The Neuenfähr man followed the landlord into the hall, where they encountered the gentleman whom he had brought, who took the landlord on one side and spoke to him in an undertone.
“They won’t have done in a hurry,” thought the driver, and so went out, unharnessed his horses, and, leaving the carriage standing for the time, led them under the overhanging roof of a barn, where they would be sheltered at any rate from the worst of the storm. He had just spread some horse-cloths over the smoking animals when the gentleman left the house and came up to him.
“I shall probably not remain long here,” said the gentleman; “perhaps not more than an hour, and then shall continue our journey.”
“Where to, sir?”
“To Prora, or back to Neuenfähr; I do not know yet.”
“It can’t be done, sir.”
“Why not?”
“The horses couldn’t do it.”
“I know better what horses can do; I will give you my orders by-and-by.”
The Neuenfähr man was irritated at the imperious tone in which the gentleman spoke to him, but he did not venture to contradict him. The gentleman, who now wore a greatcoat with metal buttons—during the drive he had worn a plain overcoat—turned up the collar as he passed round the shed towards the street. The light from the taproom fell full upon his face.
“Aha!” said the Neuenfähr man; “I thought as much. One doesn’t forget these things, however long one has been in the reserve. Where the devil is the Lieutenant going to?”
Ottomar had obtained full directions from the landlord, and indeed the road which led straight down through the village could not be mistaken. He walked slowly, and often stood still; sometimes because the storm which met him full would not allow him to continue, and sometimes because he had to try and recollect what he wanted to do at the castle. His head was confused with the long drive in an open carriage through this fearful storm, and his heart felt dead within him; he felt as if he had not energy left to tell the villain to his face that he was a villain. Besides, it ought to be, it must be done in his aunt’s presence, if the scoundrel were not to be able to deny everything afterwards, and entangle his aunt again in his web of lies as he had entangled them all. Or was it all an arranged plot between him and his aunt! It looked suspicious that she should have left the castle so early today, when he must have been expected to come to call the villain to account. She had gone with Elsa, it was true; but might not the affection which she seemed to bestow upon Elsa—in secret, like all the rest of these dark mysteries—be affection after the pattern of Giraldi’s? Perhaps his aunt had undertaken to allure and befool Elsa as Giraldi had done by him; and they had both fallen into the snare, and the crafty fowlers were laughing at their foolish prey. Poor Elsa! who had also no doubt put her faith in these fair promises, and now would have to try how she could get on as the wife of a Superintendent of Pilots with a few hundred thalers, and her home in that miserable fishing hamlet. “That was not what had been looked forward to for her, poor Elsa! That was to have been our inheritance, the castle by the sea, as we called it when we used to lay plans for our future; we were to live there together, you in one wing and I in the other; and when you married the prince and I the princess we were to draw lots which should have it to themselves; we could not continue together because of all the suite.
“And now, my dearest and best of sisters, you are far from me, waiting for your lover who is out in the storm, perhaps, to save the precious lives of a few herring-fishers; and I—”
At the spot where the road,
