`It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.’
SHAKESPEARE.
THE sad procession moved along in silence. The miners were sullen, disappointed, and tired. They had no thought of mercy, for their hearts were as hard as the iron in their axes. Yet they had little desire to exult over their prey. The victims, in their various ways, seemed more or less reconciled, to their fate; indeed, the weaker amongst them were by this time scarcely conscious of anything save fatigue. At length the old man's weary feet began to stumble; some of the miners would have urged him on with blows and curses, but Max, who seemed rather more compassionate than the rest, gave him for a staff a club he was carrying, and cut the cords that bound his hands to enable him to use it.
The road soon began to ascend, and here and there clusters of miners' huts, looking black in the moonlight, dotted the white landscape. In most of these sleep and silence reigned. Not in all, however. Sometimes the inmates were on the watch; wild, half-clothed figures rushed out at the approach of the party, and greeted the miners with shouts, and the unfortunate captives with abuse and curses, which, happily, being in German, were understood by none of them save Hubert and Matej. Some of these people had torches in their hands, and offered them to the miners; but they refused them, saying, ‘It will be as light as day upon the hill.'
The road continued to ascend. By-and-by the ground grew rugged and uneven; there was everywhere a confusion of low, irregular mounds and hillocks, formed by the excavations from the mines, which cast dark, broken shadows on the snowy ground.
The miner on Hubert's left hand touched his arm, and pointed to a hill which rose above the rest and bore upon its slope a cluster of dark fir-trees. ‘See you mount, my friend?’ he said, laughing. ‘You shall climb anon to the top, but we will save you the trouble of coming down again. There is your journey's end. Beyond you clump of firs you see a straight line, a break, and a dark spot. The pit's mouth is there. In another hour you will be at the bottom.'
‘We all know that,' said Max to his comrade. ‘Hold thy tongue, and let the lad make his peace with God—if he can.'
‘I have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ,' Hubert said calmly. Even his strong young limbs were growing weary now. But what did it matter? Weariness would soon be passed forever. All that long night One seemed to walk beside him, whose presence filled every recess of his soul, touched every nerve of his being. He did not understand it—he did not try. Everything seemed mysterious to him, and yet nothing seemed perplexing. Latterly he did not think much, he did not even pray consciously or in words. He only felt that Christ was with him now, and that soon he would be with Christ forever.
The longing came back to him to tell Zedenka of the joy that Christ was giving him. Might not this, after all, be possible? He spoke to Max.
‘I heard thee say to someone in the town, "That won't do to marry upon." Dost want to marry, then? '
‘Ay, truly. I am hand-fasted to a girl in Cazlau, and as fine a girl as there is in all the country. But what is that to thee, Hussite? '
‘This much: thou canst tell what I feel for the one I love. Wilt bear her a token, prithee? My lord, the Knight of Chlum, of whom I spoke to the magistrate in the town, will reward thee well.'
‘We shall see. What wilt thou give me for a token?'
‘Beneath my vest, and next my heart, is a small packet. It is nothing more than a bit of lace—a lady's ruffle—wrapped in paper and bound with silk. Lest any should call thee in question about the paper, I will tell thee that it contains but two words, which are in Latin, and mean simply "Go quickly."'
‘Is it a charm?'
‘No; only the writing of a man I love.'
‘Thy friends may as well have it, then, as the foul fiends at the bottom of the pit.'
‘But thou must search for it, and take it thyself, since my hands are bound. Bring it to the Knight of Chlum, who is called Kepka, and say to him and his that I die not in peace only, but with joy unspeakable and full of glory.'
Max paused a moment and looked at him with a passing thrill of wonder. Then he put out his hand, and began to search for the token. ‘A plague on the thing!’ he muttered. ‘Can't get at it!—Can't see! What ails the moon? '
They had now begun the ascent of the fatal hill. It was long and steep, and victims and executioners paused to breathe.
The same exclamation, ‘What ails the moon?' came at almost the same time from several lips. Hubert looked up, as did the others. At the edge of the planet was a strange dark shadow, slowly creeping inwards. ‘Solito was right after all,' thought Hubert. ‘The moon is growing dark with the shadow of the earth. But what does it matter to me? I shall be beyond the shadows ere yet they have passed from the sky.'
The whole band stood in silence, watching. Max forgot his search for the token—his hands dropped idly by his side. As the dread shadow deepened, exclamations of surprise and awe passed from lip to lip. All things around them began to take a weird, unearthly hue. Each man, as he looked in his neighbor's face, thought its pallid hue showed a terror greater than his own. The white of the snow looked ghastly in the glimmering light, which was not light nor shade, not day nor night.
Matej and the two young Bohemians began to pray aloud. Stop your noise, you heretics!’ cried a miner roughly. "Tis you who are bringing these portents on the land.'
‘Ill ever comes of them,' said another. ‘Last year there was a darkening of the moon like this, and a month and a day after it the foul fiends at the bottom of the mine sent out the fire-damp, and two-score of brave miners met their fate.'
‘I had rather be choked with the fire-damp than poisoned by the plague,' observed a third. ‘And I have heard my grandfather say that such signs in the heavens always come before the plague.'
‘A plague upon thy plagues!’ shouted a fourth. ‘Come on—let's finish our work! '
‘There's sense in that,' assented others. ‘If anything can keep us from harm, it is taking the part of God and our Lady, and doing justice upon these heretics.'
‘Let's say an Ave first—'twere safer,' suggested Max, with a little hesitation.
But the others called him coward, and bade him say his prayers when his work was done. The taunt made him furious, but his anger was little heeded. A few tried laughter and ribald jests, but they died away into silence as the darkness deepened still. In spite of themselves the miners were terrified, and their terror took the form of cruelty. They wanted to rush upon something and destroy it, and their helpless captives were ready to their hand. Perhaps the human sacrifice they were about to offer would appease Heaven and insure their safety. With a sudden, tumultuous impulse they resumed their march to the mouth of the pit, dragging the captives with them.
Hubert contrived to whisper to his companions a few consoling words. The old man said, ‘It is the shadow of our Father's hand, so it can only mean good for His children.'
‘But, grandfather,' asked the boy, ' is it not wonderful that these wicked men do not see God is frowning upon their cruelty? '
They saw plainly that God was frowning upon something; but they thought it was upon the heresy of their victims. So their blind, bewildered souls vibrated aimlessly between rage and terror. Their feet ‘stumbled on the dark mountains,' and they ‘looked for light, and beheld darkness and the shadow of death.'
This was true in figure, true also in fact. Two or three times they nearly missed, in their confusion, the path to the pit, a path so familiar that they could tread it almost as well by night as by day. At last, however, the goal was won.
A great flat mound of excavated clay stood almost at the brink of the mine. This they ascended, and saw before them the awful chasm, a spot of dense Egyptian blackness in the dim, lurid light. The dark copper-red of the eclipse had now covered all the moon except a tiny glimmering crescent. But the stars shone brightly out, showing the narrow streak of blue-white snow between their feet and the abyss.
Suddenly, from the very edge of the pit, a tall white column shot up into the darkness. It trembled a little, then stood motionless, a pillar of ice against the black of the abyss. Then a wild cry rang out into the awful stillness of the upper air. ‘The Day of Judgment! The Day of the Lord!' shrieked a strange, unearthly voice. The great and terrible Day of the Lord! The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and terrible Day of the Lord!' The voice sunk, the cry died away into a wailing moan. But it rose again in yet wilder, more thrilling tones, halt' a scream of terror, half a shriek of agony. Say to the mountains fall on you, say to the rocks hide you from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? For you have shed the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain on the earth. Therefore shall you drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured without mixture into the cup of His indignation, and the smoke of your torment shall ascend up forever and ever from the pit—from the pit—from the bottomless pit.'
The miners, already unnerved by the eclipse, were seized with uncontrollable terror. First they stood stupefied, then they trembled, wavered, broke their ranks in confusion. ‘The Day of Judgment!’ shrieked some. ‘A witch!’ ‘A warlock!’ ‘A foul fiend!’ ‘An angel of God!’ cried others.
Whatever the thing might be—fiend or angel, or messenger of doom—they had no will to stand and face it. They turned their backs, and in another moment would have been in full career down the hill.
But Max held his ground, and stayed the rest. ‘Hear me, comrades!’ he cried. ‘This is no fiend nor angel, but a mortal woman. See, I will lay hands upon her! Am I a coward now? '
He sprang forward, and clasped the thing in his strong, sinewy arms. For an instance the strange light showed the two white figures wrestling together on the brink of the abyss. Then, with a cry of horror that ‘echoed to the tingling stars,' one figure disappeared, and was lost to sight forever.
The white pillar stood unmoved, and out of it came a voice that said, or shrieked, ‘So perish all Thine enemies, O God! Let them go down quick into the pit! the pit! the bottomless pit! '
No earthly power could have stopped the miners then. They dashed down the hill at headlong speed, as if all the spirits—demons, gnomes, or kobolds, with which their superstition peopled the depths of the mine—were at their heels in avenging fury. The unreasoning panic infected even the captives. Matej would have joined the flight had not Hubert, to whom he was bound, held him back by force. The two young men ran with the rest, but one of them stumbled over a heap of rubbish, and dragged his companion with him to the ground. Only the old man and his grandchildren did not stir from the spot where they stood. Meanwhile, the white pillar vanished silently—like a dream.
It was strange that Hubert's first thought, when he could think at all, was one of pity for the poor girl at Cazlau, who would wait and watch in vain for the coming of her betrothed. That one touch of nature had made kin of the intending murderer and the intended victim. Should his queen, his beloved, watch and wait for him so at Melnik? ‘No,' thought he. ‘God is giving back our lives to us. I shall live—for her.'
Immediately thought became action. He went to the side of the old man. ‘Father,' he said, ‘look up! God has delivered us out of the hands of our enemies.'
The old man looked up, bewildered and incredulous.
‘We are ready to die for our faith,' he said.
‘I know it, father. But God bids you, instead, to live for it.'
‘“To depart and to be with Christ is far better." '
‘“But to abide in the flesh is more needful"—at least for these children. Father, think of them and help me to save us all.'
Hubert turned to the boy and girl. The boy had his arms round his sister, who seemed to be half insensible. But Hubert's voice aroused her and she set up a piteous cry: ‘Don't let them throw us into that pit, grandfather! '
‘Father,' said Hubert, ‘you must cut our bonds. Quick, for this darkness, like the pillar of cloud you wot of, is terror to our foes and safety to us.'
‘There is no knife.'
‘There is. They have taken my side knives, and my poniard I left at the inn; but put your hand in my left boot, and you will find a small clasp knife which I always carry there. You men, be brave now, and you shall see your homes once more. Matej, remember Meličia and the boy.'
The old man roused his failing energies, got at the knife, and cut the bonds of Hubert, who then quickly freed the rest. The first use Matej made of his liberty was to take off the fur cloak his wife had given him, and to wrap it round the shivering form of the bewildered girl, who was just beginning to understand that she was not, after all, to be thrown into the pit.
‘Where do your homes lie?’ asked Hubert of the two young men.
‘Straight across there, master, as the crow flies,' cried one of them, pointing towards Kolin. ‘But for this awful darkness we could see our church spire from this hill.'
‘Bless God for the darkness, and guide us through it thither if you can. That will be much safer than venturing back to the inn. See already the eclipse is passing, and the light will redouble our danger. How far is it? '
‘Not two leagues. Kuttenberg was far out of our way; though they must needs drag us there to get their reward, and much good it has done them. Think you, master, that the spirit of the mine will do us a mischief? I saw it vanish away just now, behind you fir-grove.'
‘My masters,' said Matej suddenly, ‘don't mock at me if I tell you a thing which I heard in the town one of the last days I went there to do my business. There was a merchant of wool, named Schubart, a German, but he and his son were determined Hussites. After much ado, one way or another, to make them good Catholics, they were given over to the miners and thrown into the mine. The poor wife and mother hath been crazed ever since, and it was told me that she has escaped from her kinsfolk. Where would she be more like to go than to the spot she must be thinking of day and night? God help her! '
But the two young men fell upon him angrily for the suggestion; and even the gentle old man was ill-pleased with it. ‘It was the finger of God,' he said. ‘That is all we can tell. His ways are past finding out.' Motel, accustomed to be told he was stupid and a blunderer, felt ashamed of his conjecture and held his peace.
Hubert hastened their departure, pointing to the moon, from which the friendly darkness was now fast disappearing. Hope and courage lent strength even to weak and weary limbs. They all descended the hill at a quick pace, and in the silence and solitude of the night began their march across the plain.
Few words were spoken as they walked along. Once, however, Hubert said to the young men, ‘Friends, what is your calling? '
‘We dig the coal out of the bowels of the earth, as the miners do the silver.'
‘What for?’ asked Hubert, who was used only to fires of wood.
‘Mostly for the miners. They want furnaces for smelting their ore, and for many things besides.'
‘Then without your coal they could not use their silver? You say you are not Hussites. Very well; but you are Bohemians. And I suppose you do not want treatment such as you had to-night? '
The answer was decided and energetic.
‘Then, my friends, you have the cure in your own hands. No more coal for the Saxons—till such time as the Saxons learn the lesson—no more Hussites for the mines.'
The young men shook their heads. ‘We are not strong enough,' they said.
‘Here, friends,' interposed Matej, ‘is a road branching off to the left, by you farmstead, that leads straight to the Silver Pickaxe! Come with me, and break your fast ere you go farther. I know Meličia will not think the best flask in the cellar too good for us to-night.'
The young men, very naturally, declined this hospitable proposal, on account of the danger of recapture in a place so constantly frequented by the miners. For the same reason it was thought safer for the old man and his grandchildren to return at once under their escort to their own home.
Hubert, however, said that he would go back with Matej to the inn; partly in the hope of recovering his pack, but more that he might try and persuade the innkeeper to leave the place, at least for the present. He feared that Matej had not the slightest idea of the danger he had incurred by his share in the night's work, and that the best way to secure his safety would be to awaken the apprehensions of his more quick-witted and energetic spouse. She ought to know that the miner he had wounded, and his friends, would be certain to seek revenge.
Hubert's parting with the old man and the children was affectionate. As in the old Scripture times, they embraced and kissed one another, and wept on one another's necks. They did not expect to meet again in this world, but looked forward confidently to a joyful reunion ‘in the presence of the King.'
In the dim gray dawn of the winter morning there was heard once more a knocking at the door of the Silver Pickaxe. Maria opened it cautiously a little way. ‘Who be you?' she asked, peering through the uncertain light. ‘If you will come in, step softly, for my poor mistress is nearly out of her senses with trouble, and has not slept the whole night long—at least, unless she is dozing now. Holy saints! it is the master, or the master's ghost! '
Her cry brought Meličia to the door, with disordered dress, uncovered head, and gray hair streaming in the morning wind. Another moment, and the little innkeeper was completely lost to sight in the encircling arms of his stalwart spouse.
‘Good wife,' said Matej, as soon as he could speak, ‘let us thank God. He has delivered us from our enemies, by reason of the moon, and of a ghost, and of this brave chapman here, who kept his wits about him and knew always the next thing, to do. At least,' he added, ‘the rest all say it was a spirit or an angel that appeared to us; and why should I set myself up as knowing better than they?’
Then Meličia extended to Hubert a welcome which for warmth left nothing to be desired. In fact he barely escaped an embrace. The travelers were soon seated, the fire was kindled, and the best the house contained in the way of food or drink was set before them. As his strong tension of soul and nerve began gradually to relax, Hubert could not help observing, with some amusement, the transformation Meličia had undergone. The vigorous, capable woman, rough and coarse, but true of heart, was ready absolutely to bow down and worship the weak creature whom hitherto she had ruled with a rod of iron. Was he not ‘her man,' the father of her children, given back to her by a miracle from the dead? Nay more, he had done something: he had fought with the miners, wounded one of them, been made a prisoner, been nearly put to death. He was a hero, if not a martyr—a true Bohemian, who stood up for his country against the Germans. He was a person to be respected, venerated, to sit unchallenged in the armchair, and to drink the best of wine, or strong waters even, if it liked him. Would he have some now—he and master chapman also-to keep out the cold?
‘Nay, wife,' said Matej, ‘give me good honest beer. I vowed at the pit's month, when master packman cut my bonds, that if I got home safe I would stick to that, and not too much of it either, so as to mind you, and the boy, and the business, and live as a Christian man ought to do.'