“I am not poor,” he cried; “I am the son of a prince; and more than a prince—I am Michelangelo; and a greater than Michelangelo! I see them coming in moving crowds, singing hymns in praise of the immortal Antonio; bearing flowers, twining garlands, to adorn and encircle the wonderful creations of the divine Antonio! Do you hear? do you hear! There! there!”
From the broad village street there rose up the confused, tumultuous cry of the people, who had been alarmed at the news of the advancing flood, and were hastening to the scene of the catastrophe; from the tower of the neighbouring church there rang out, broken by the storm, the clang of the bells, now threateningly near, and again in trembling distance.
“Do you hear!” cried the maniac. “Do you hear?”
He stood with outstretched arm, smiling; his eyes, lighted with joy and triumph, fixed upon Ferdinanda, who gazed in terror at him.
Suddenly the smile changed to a fearful grimace, his eyes glared with deadly hatred, his outstretched arm was withdrawn with a shudder, his hand convulsively clutched at his breast, as immediately under the window a voice rose, clear and commanding, above the raging of the storm and the shouts of the crowd:
“A rope, a strong rope—the longest that you have got! And thinner cord—as much as possible. There are some people there already! I shall be there before you!”
A hasty step, taking three or four stairs at once, came up the creaking staircase. The maniac laughed wildly.
The landlady, too, had heard the clear voice below, and the hasty step on the stairs. There would be an accident, for sure, if the gentleman came in now, when that strange, disagreeable man was with the lady! She burst into the room at the moment when the gentleman opened the door on the other side.
Uttering a howl of rage, and brandishing high his stiletto, Antonio rushed upon him. But Ferdinanda had thrown herself between them before Ottomar could cross the threshold, shielding her lover with outspread arms, offering her own bosom to the fatal thrust, and falling without a groan into Ottomar’s arms, as the murderer fled past them in cowardly, mad flight at sight of the crime that he had never intended, and that had broken through the night of his insanity as if by a flash of lightning—fled down the stairs, through the crowd below, who had been summoned by the clang of the alarm-bell and the cries of terror of the hasty passersby from the taproom and all parts of the house, and who now drew back in terror from the stranger with the wild black hair, brandishing a knife in his hand—out into the village street, overthrowing all that came in his way in the confused, shrieking, shouting crowd without—out into the howling darkness! And “Murder, murder!” “Stop him!” “Stop the murderer!” rang through the house.
XIII
“Heavens and earth!” cried the Neuenfähr man, “I must go in here! One moment, sir!” and he ran into the house.
The gentleman who was just getting into the carriage drew back, and stamped his foot furiously.
“Is hell itself let loose against me?” he cried, and gnashed his teeth.
As he had made his way cautiously through the darkness a few minutes before to the inn, of which he had taken note as he drove through the village in the afternoon, and where he hoped to find some vehicle to convey him farther, he had met the Neuenfähr driver, who was just harnessing his horses again, for which the landlord, with the best of goodwill, could find no stable-room, at any rate not before a part of the outhouse was cleared out.
“The horses will catch cold,” the man had said to himself; “the best thing after all will be to drive back.”
He was still busying himself in the dark over the harness, which had got twisted, when someone who suddenly appeared beside him asked:
“Will you give me a lift, my man?”
“Where to, sir?”
“To Neuenfähr.”
“What will you pay, sir?”
“Anything you like.”
“Get in, sir!” said the Neuenfähr man, delighted to find that instead of taking his carriage back this long distance empty, he had found a passenger who would pay him anything he liked to ask. He would not take him for nothing, but he must see about this alarm of murder.
“He will not come back in a hurry,” muttered the gentleman; “and I shall run the risk of meeting him again; it is almost a miracle that he did not see me.”
He had been standing close to Ottomar as the latter gave his orders to the people, and, to give more authority to his words, mentioned his name, and that it was his aunt and sister who were in danger, and that there was not a moment to lose or it would be too late.
The stranger moved farther into the shadow of the barn before which the carriage stood. He would make sure of not being seen in any case. But just then the Neuenfähr man came back in a state of great excitement.
The young lady had been stabbed and killed, whom he had brought here with the young gentleman! Heavens and earth, if he had known that it was Herr von Werben! and that the beautiful young lady, his wife, would so soon be murdered by a foreign vagabond—the same no doubt whom he had seen hanging about in Neuenfähr, when he drew up at the inn by the bridge—a young fellow with black hair and black eyes; and he had noticed the black hair again as the fellow rushed out of the house—plainly—he could swear to it. The fellow might attack them on the road; he was not afraid for himself—he did not fear the devil; but if the gentleman preferred to remain here—
In his excitement the brandy he had been drinking before had
