THE reader is already aware that we are at Throndhjem, one of the four chief cities in Norway, although not the residence of the viceroy. At the date of this story (1699) the kingdom of Norway was still united to Denmark, and governed by a viceroy whose seat was in Bergen, a larger, handsomer, and more southerly town than Throndhjem, in spite of the disagreeable nickname attached to it by the famous Admiral Tromp.

Throndhjem offers a pleasant prospect as you approach it by the fjord to which the city gives its name. The harbor is quite large, although it cannot be entered easily in all weathers. At this time it resembled nothing so much as a long canal, lined on the right by Danish and Norwegian ships, and on the left by foreign vessels, as prescribed by law. In the background lay the town, situated on a well-cultivated plain, and crowned by the lofty spires of the cathedral. This church—one of the finest pieces of Gothic architecture, as we may judge from Professor Shoenning’s book, so learnedly quoted by Spiagudry, which describes it as it was before repeated fires had laid it waste—bore upon its highest pinnacle the episcopal cross, the distinctive sign that it was the cathedral of the Lutheran bishop of Throndhjem. Beyond the town, in the blue distance, were the slender white peaks of the Kiölen Mountains, like the sharp-pointed ornaments on an antique crown.

In the middle of the harbor, within cannon-shot of the shore, upon a mass of rocks lashed by the waves, rose the lonely fortress of Munkholm, a gloomy prison which then held a prisoner celebrated for the splendor of his long prosperity and for his sudden disgrace.

Schumacker, born in an obscure station, was loaded with favors by his master, then hurled from the chair of the Lord High Chancellor of Denmark and Norway to the traitor’s bench, dragged to the scaffold, and thence by royal clemency cast into a lonely dungeon at the extreme end of the two kingdoms. His creatures had overthrown him, but gave him no right to inveigh against their ingratitude. How could he complain if the steps gave way beneath him, which he had built so high for his own aggrandizement only?

The founder of the Danish nobility, from the depth of his exile, saw the grandees whom he had created share his own dignities between them. Count d’Ahlefeld, his mortal enemy, succeeded him as chancellor; General Arensdorf, as earl-marshal, distributed military titles, and Bishop Spollyson took the position of inspector of universities. The only one of his foes who did not owe his rise to him was Count Ulric Frederic Guldenlew, natural son of King Frederic III, and now viceroy of Norway. He was the most generous of all.

Toward the sombre rock of Munkholm the boat of the youth with the black plume now slowly moved. The sun sank rapidly behind the lonely fortress, whose walls cut off its last beams, already so horizontal that the peasant on the distant eastern hills of Larsynn might see beside him on the heather the faint shadow of the sentinel keeping his watch on Munkholm’s highest tower.

III.

“That must be Captain Dispolsen at last!” said the sergeant, opening the tiny grated window which looked out upon the gulf.

A boat was just landing at the foot of the iron gate.

“Who goes there?” cried the sergeant in hoarse tones.

“Open!” was the answer; “peace and safety.”

“There is no admittance here. Have you a passport?”

“Yes.”

“I must make sure of that. If you lie, by the merits of my patron saint, you shall taste the waters of the gulf!” Then, closing the lattice and turning away, he added: “It is not the captain yet.”

A light shone behind the iron gate. The rusty bolts creaked, the grating rose, the gate opened, and the sergeant examined a parchment handed him by the new-comer.

“Pass in,” said he. “But stay,” he added hastily, “leave your hat-buckle outside. No one is allowed to enter the prisons of the State wearing jewels. The order declares that ‘the king and the members of the royal family, the viceroy and members of the vice-regal family, the bishop, and the officers of the garrison, are alone excepted.’ You come under none of these heads, do you?”

The young man, without reply, removed the forbidden ornament, and flung it to the fisherman who brought him thither, in payment of his services; the latter, fearing lest he might repent his generosity, made haste to put a broad expanse of sea between the benefactor and his benefit.

While the sergeant, grumbling at the chancellor’s imprudence in being so prodigal with his passes, replaced the clumsy bars, and while the lingering sound of his heavy boots still echoed on the stairs leading to the guard-house, the young man, throwing his mantle over his shoulder, hurriedly crossed the dark vault of the low tower, the long parade-ground, and the ordnance-room, where lay a few old dismantled culverins, still to be seen in the Copenhagen museum, all nearer approach to which was forbidden by the warning cry of a sentinel. He reached the great portcullis, which was raised on sight of his parchment. Thence, followed by a soldier, he crossed diagonally, without hesitation, and like one familiar with the place, one of the four square courts which skirt the great circular yard, in whose midst rose the huge round rock upon which stood the donjon, called the castle of the Lion of Schleswig, from the forced sojourn there of Jotham the Lion, Duke of Schleswig, held captive by his brother, Rolf the Dwarf.

It is not our purpose to give a description of Munkholm keep, the more so that the reader, confined in a State prison, might fear that he could not escape through the garden. He would be mistaken; for the castle of the Lion of Schleswig, meant for prisoners of distinction only, among other conveniences affords them the pleasure of a walk in a sort of wild garden of considerable extent, where clumps of holly, a few ancient yews, and some dark pines grow among the rocks around the lofty prison, inside an enclosure of thick walls and huge towers.

Reaching the foot of the round rock, the young man climbed the rude winding steps which lead to the foot of one of the towers of the enclosure, having a postern below, which served as the entrance to the keep. Here he blew a loud blast on a copper horn handed to him by the warder of the great portcullis. “Come in, come in!” eagerly

exclaimed a voice from within; “it must be that confounded captain!”

As the postern swung open, the new-comer saw, in a dimly lighted Gothic apartment, a young officer stretched carelessly upon a pile of cloaks and reindeer-skins, beside one of the three-beaked lamps which our ancestors used to hang from the rose-work of their ceilings, and which at this moment stood upon the ground. The elegance and indeed excessive luxury of his dress was in strong contrast with the bare walls and rude furniture; he held a book, and turned slightly toward the new-comer.

“Is it you, Captain? How are you, Captain? You little suspected that you were keeping a man waiting who has not the pleasure of your acquaintance; but our acquaintance will soon be made, will it not? Begin by receiving my commiseration upon your return to this venerable castle. Short as my stay here may be, I shall soon be about as gay as the owl nailed at donjon doors to serve as scarecrow, and when I return to Copenhagen, to my sister’s wedding feast, the deuce take me if four women out of a hundred will know me! Tell me, are the knots of pink ribbon at the hem of my doublet still in fashion? Has any one translated a new novel by that Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Scudéry? I have ‘Clelia;’ I suppose people are still reading it in Copenhagen. It is my code of gallantry, now that I am forced to sigh remote from so many bright eyes; for, bright as they are, the eyes of our young prisoner—you know who I mean—have never a message for me. Ah! were it not for my father’s orders!... I must tell you in confidence, Captain, that my father,—but don’t mention it,—charged me to—you understand me—Schumacker’s daughter. But I have my labor for my pains; that pretty statue is not a woman; she weeps all day long and never looks at me.”

The young man, unable thus far to interrupt the officer’s extreme volubility, uttered an exclamation of surprise:—

“What! What did you say? Charged you to seduce the daughter of that unfortunate Schumacker!”

“Seduce? Well, so be it, if that is the name you give it now in Copenhagen; but I defy the Devil himself to succeed. Day before yesterday, being on duty, I put on for her express benefit a superb French ruff sent direct from Paris. Would you believe that she never even raised her eyes to look at me, although I passed through her room three or four times clinking my new spurs, whose rowels are no bigger than a Lombardy ducat? That’s the newest fashion, is n’t it?”

“Heavens! Heavens!” said the young man, striking his forehead; “but this confounds me!”

“I thought it would!” rejoined the officer, mistaking the meaning of the remark. “Not to take the least notice of me! It is incredible, and yet it is true.”

The young man strode up and down the room in violent excitement.

“Won’t you take some refreshment, Captain Dispolsen?” cried the officer.

The young man started.

“I am not Captain Dispolsen.”

“What!” said the officer angrily, sitting up as he spoke; “and pray who are you, then, that venture to introduce yourself here at this hour?”

The young man displayed his papers.

“I wish to see Count Griffenfeld,—I would say, your prisoner.”

“The Count! the Count!” muttered the officer in some displeasure. “But, to be sure, this paper is in order; here is the signature of Vice-Chancellor Grummond de Knud. ‘Admit the bearer to visit all the royal prisons at any hour and at any time.’ Grummond de Knud is brother to old General Levin de Knud, who is in command at Throndhjem, and you must know that this old general had the bringing up of my future brother-in-law.”

“Thanks for these family details, Lieutenant. Don’t you think you have told me enough of them?”

“The impertinent fellow is right,” said the lieutenant, biting his lips. “Hullo, there, officer, officer of the tower! Escort this stranger to Schumacker, and do not scold if I have taken down your lamp with three beaks and but one wick. I was curious to examine an article which is doubtless the work of Sciold the Pagan or Havar the giant-killer; and besides it is no longer the fashion to hang anything but crystal chandeliers from the ceiling.”

With these words, as the young man and his escort crossed the deserted donjon garden, the martyr to fashion resumed the thread of the love adventures of the Amazonian Clelia and Horatius the One-eyed.

IV.

“He stopped at the Spladgest, and has embarked for Munkholm.”

“Ah! I supposed he was at the antipodes. But what is his business at that castle? What took him to the Spladgest? Just like my knight-errant. After all, I am rather to blame, for why did I give him such a bringing up? I wanted him to be free in spite of his rank.”

“Therefore he is no slave to etiquette,” said Poël.

“No; but he is to his own caprice. Well, he will doubtless return. Rest and refresh yourself, Poël. Tell me,” and the general’s face took on an expression of solicitude, “tell me, Poël, have you been doing much running up and down?”

“General, we came here direct from Bergen. My master was melancholy.”

“Melancholy! Why, what can have occurred between him and his father? Is he averse to this marriage?”

“I do not know. But they say that his Serene Highness insists upon it.”

“Insists! You say, Poël, that the viceroy insists upon this match! But why should he insist unless Ordener refused?”

“I don’t know, your Excellency. He seems sad.”

“Sad! Do you know how his father received him?”

“The first time, it was at the camp, near Bergen. His Serene Highness said, ‘I seldom see you, my son.’ ‘So much the better for me, my lord and father,’ replied my master, ‘if you take note of it.’ Then he gave his Grace certain details about his travels in the North, and his Grace said: ‘It is well.’ Next day my master came back from the palace and said: ‘They want me to marry; but I must consult my second father, General Levin.’ I saddled the horses, and here we are.”

“Really, my good Poël,” said the general, in trembling tones, “did he really call me his second father?”

“Yes, your Excellency.”

“Woe to me if this marriage distresses him, for I will sooner incur the king’s displeasure than lend myself to it. And yet, the daughter of the Lord High Chancellor of both kingdoms—By the way, Poël, does Ordener know that his future mother-in-law, Countess d’Ahlefeld, has been here incognito since yesterday, and that the count is expected?”

“I don’t know, General.”

“Oh, yes,” thought the old governor, “he knows it; for why else should he beat a retreat the instant that he arrived?”

Upon this, the general, with a friendly wave of the hand to Poël, and a salute to the sentinel who presented arms to him, returned in anxious mood to the quarters which he had left in anxious mood.

V.

The speaker was an old man, seated with his back to the door, his elbows on a writing-table, his head buried in his hands. He wore a black woollen gown, and above a bed at one end of the room hung a broken escutcheon, around which were grouped the broken collars of the orders of the Elephant and the Dannebrog; a count’s coronet, reversed, was fastened under the shield, and two fragments of a hand of Justice, tied crosswise, completed the strange ornamentation. The old man was Schumacker.

“No, my Lord,” replied the officer; then he said to the stranger, “This is the prisoner;” and leaving them together, he closed the door, without heeding the shrill voice of the old man, who exclaimed: “If it is not the captain, I will see no one.”

At these words the stranger remained by the door; and the prisoner, thinking himself alone,—for he had turned away,—fell back into his silent revery. Suddenly he exclaimed: “The captain has assuredly forsaken and betrayed me! Men,—men are like the icicle which an Arab took for a diamond; he hid it carefully in his wallet, and when he looked for it again he found not even a drop of water.”

“I am no such man,” said the stranger.

Schumacker rose quickly. “Who is here? Who overhears me? Is it some miserable tool of that Guldenlew?”

“Speak no evil of the viceroy, my lord Count.”

“Lord Count! Do you address me thus to flatter me? You have your labor for your pains; I am powerful no longer.”

“He who speaks to you never knew you in your day of power, and is none the less your friend.”

“Because he still hopes to gain something from me; those memories of the unhappy which linger in the minds of men are to be measured by the hopes of future gain.”

“I am the one who should complain, noble Count; for I remember you, and you have forgotten me. I am Ordener.”

A flash of joy lit up the old man’s sad eyes, and a smile which he could not repress parted his white beard, as when a sunbeam breaks through a cloud.

“Ordener! Welcome, traveller Ordener! A thousand prayers for the happiness of the traveller who remembers the prisoner!”

“But,” inquired Ordener, “had you really forgotten me?”

“I had forgotten you,” said Schumacker, resuming his sombre mood, “as we forget the breeze which refreshes us and passes by; we are fortunate if it does not become a whirlwind to destroy us.”

“Count Griffenfeld,” rejoined the young man, “did you not count upon my return?”

“Old Schumacker did not count upon it; but there is a maiden here, who reminded me this very day that it was a year on the 8th of last May, since you went away.”

Ordener started.

“Heavens! Can it be your Ethel, noble Count?”

“Who else?”

“Your daughter, my Lord, has deigned to count the months of my absence! Oh, how many dreary days I have passed! I have traversed Norway from Christiania to Wardhus; but my journeyings always tended back toward Throndhjem.”

“Use your freedom, young man, while you may. But tell me who you are. I would like, Ordener, to know you by some other name. The son of one of my mortal foes is called Ordener.”

“Perhaps, my lord Count, this mortal foe feels greater kindness for you than you for him.”

“You evade my question; but keep your secret. I might learn that the fruit which quenches my thirst is a poison which will destroy me.”

“Count!” cried Ordener, angrily; “Count!” he repeated, in tones of pity and reproach.

“Why should I trust you,” replied Schumacker,—“you who to my very face defend the merciless Guldenlew?”

“The viceroy,” gravely interrupted the young man, “has just ordered that for the future you shall be free and unguarded within the entire precinct of the Lion of Schleswig keep. This news I learned at Bergen, and you will doubtless soon hear it from headquarters.”

“This is a favor for which I dared not hope, and I thought you were the only person to whom I had mentioned my wish. So they lessen the weight of my chains as that of my years increases; and when old age renders me helpless, they will probably tell me, ‘You are free.’”

So saying, the old man smiled bitterly, and added: “And you, young man, do you still cling to your foolish ideas of independence?”

“If I had not those same foolish ideas, I should not be here.”

“How did you come to Throndhjem?”

“Why, on horseback.”

“How did you reach Munkholm?”

“By boat.”

“Poor fool! You think yourself free, and yet you only leave a horse for a boat. It is not your own limbs that carry out your wishes; it is a brute beast, it is material matter; and you call that free will!”

“I force animate beings to obey me.”

“To assume a right to the obedience of certain beings is to give others a right to command you. Independence exists only in isolation.”

“You do not love mankind, noble Count?”

The old man laughed sadly. “I weep that I am a man, and I laugh at him who would console me. You will yet learn, if you do not already know, that misfortune creates suspicion as prosperity does ingratitude. Tell me, since you come from Bergen, what favoring winds blow upon Captain Dispolsen. Some good fortune must have befallen him, that he forgets me.”

Ordener looked grave and embarrassed.

“Dispolsen, my lord Count? I come here to-day to talk to you of him. I know that he possessed your entire confidence.”

“You know?” broke in the prisoner, uneasily. “You are mistaken. No one on earth has my confidence. Dispolsen has, it is true, my papers, and very important papers too. He went to Copenhagen, to the king, for me. I may even confess that I reckoned more surely upon him than upon any one else, for in the days of my prosperity I never did him a service.”

“Well, noble Count, I saw him to-day—”

“Your distress tells me the rest; he is a traitor.”

“He is dead.”

“Dead!”

The prisoner folded his arms and bent his head, then looking up at the young man, said: “I told you some good fortune must have befallen him!”

His eye turned to the wall, where the signs of his former grandeur hung, and he waved his hand, as if to dismiss the witness of a grief which he strove to conquer.

“I do not pity him; ’tis but one man the less. Nor do I pity myself; what have I to lose? But my daughter,—my unfortunate daughter! I shall be the victim of this infernal plot; and what is to become of her, if her father is taken from her?”

He turned quickly to Ordener. “How did he die? Where did you see him?”

“I saw him at the Spladgest. No one knows whether he died by suicide or by the hand of an assassin.”

“That is now all-important. If he was murdered, I know who dealt the blow. Then all is lost. He bore proofs of the conspiracy against me. Those proofs might have saved me and ruined them! Unhappy Ethel!”

“My lord Count,” said Ordener, bowing, “to-morrow I will tell you whether he was murdered.”

Schumacker, without answering, cast on Ordener, as he left the room, a look of quiet despair more terrible than the calm of death.

Ordener found himself in the prisoner’s empty antechamber, not knowing which way to turn. Night was far advanced and the room was dark. He opened a door at haphazard and entered a vast corridor lighted only by the moon, which moved rapidly through pale clouds. Its misty beams fell now and again upon the long, narrow glass windows, and painted on the opposite wall what seemed a procession of ghosts, appearing and disappearing simultaneously in the depths of the passage. The young man slowly crossed himself, and walked toward a light which shone faintly at the end of the corridor.

A door stood ajar; a young girl knelt in a Gothic oratory, at the foot of a bare altar, reciting in low tones litanies to the Virgin,—simple and sublime aspirations, in which the soul that rises toward the Mother of Seven Sorrows asks nothing but her prayers.

The young girl was dressed in black crape and white gauze, as if to show at a glance that her days had hitherto been passed in grief and innocence. Even in this modest attitude she bore the impress of a strange nature. Her eyes and her long hair were black (a very rare beauty in the North); her eyes, raised to heaven, seemed kindled with rapture rather than dimmed by meditation. She seemed a virgin from the shores of Cyprus or the banks of the Tiber, clad in the fanciful disguise of one of Ossian’s characters and prostrate before the wooden cross and stone altar of Christ Jesus.

Ordener started and almost fell, for he recognized the devotee.

She was praying for her father, for the mighty who had fallen, for the old and desolate prisoner; and she recited aloud the psalm of the deliverance out of Egypt. She prayed for another as well, but Ordener did not hear his name. He did not hear it, for she did not utter it; she merely recited the canticle of the Sulamite, the bride who awaits her bridegroom and the return of her beloved.

Ordener stepped back into the gallery; he respected the maiden holding converse with the sky. Prayer is a great mystery, and his heart was involuntarily filled with unknown but profane ecstasy.

The door of the oratory was gently closed. Soon a light borne by a white figure moved toward him through the darkness. He stood still, for he felt one of the strongest emotions of his life; he leaned against the gloomy wall; his body was weak, and his limbs trembled beneath him. In the silence of his entire being the beating of his heart was plainly audible to his own ear.

As the young girl passed, she heard the rustle of a garment, and a quick, sudden gasp, and cried out in terror.

Ordener rushed forward. With one arm he supported her, with the other he vainly tried to grasp the lamp which she had dropped, and which went out.

“It is I,” he said softly.

“It is Ordener!” said the girl; for the last echo of that voice, which she had not heard for a year, still rang in her ear.

And the moon, passing by, revealed the joy of her fair face. Then she repeated, in timid confusion, freeing herself from the young man’s arms, “It is my lord Ordener.”

“Himself, Countess Ethel.”

“Why do you call me countess?”

“Why do you call me my lord?”

The young girl smiled, and was silent. The young man was silent, and sighed. She was first to break the silence.

“How came you here?”

“Pardon me, if my presence disturbs you. I came to see the count, your father.”

“Then,” said Ethel, in a changed tone, “you only came for my father’s sake.”

The young man bent his head, for these words seemed to him unjust.

“I suppose you have been in Throndhjem a long time,” she continued reproachfully, “I suppose you have been here a long time already? Your absence from this castle cannot have seemed long to you.”

Ordener, deeply wounded, made no reply.

“You are right,” said the prisoner, in a voice which trembled with anger and distress; “but,” she added, in a haughty tone, “I hope, my lord Ordener, that you did not overhear my prayers?”

“Countess,” reluctantly replied the young man, “I did hear you.”

“Ah! my lord Ordener, it was far from courteous to listen.”

“I did not listen, noble Countess,” said Ordener in a low voice; “I overheard you accidentally.”

“I prayed for my father,” rejoined the girl, looking steadily at him, as if expecting an answer to this very simple statement.

Ordener was silent.

“I also prayed,” she continued uneasily, and apparently anxious as to the effect which her words might produce upon him, “I also prayed for some one who bears your name, for the son of the viceroy, Count Guldenlew. For we should pray for every one, even our persecutors.”

And she blushed, for she thought she was lying; but she was offended with the young man, and she fancied that she had mentioned him in her prayer; she had only named him in her heart.

“Ordener Guldenlew is very unfortunate, noble lady, if you reckon him among the number of your persecutors; and yet he is very fortunate to possess a place in your prayers.”

“Oh, no,” said Ethel, troubled and alarmed by his cold manner, “no, I did not pray for him. I do not know what I did, nor what I do. As for the viceroy’s son, I detest him; I do not know him. Do not look at me so sternly; have I offended you? Can you not forgive a poor prisoner,—you who spend your days in the society of some fair and noble lady, free and happy like yourself?”

“I, Countess!” exclaimed Ordener.

Ethel burst into tears; the young man flung himself at her feet.

“Did you not tell me,” she continued, smiling through her tears, “that your absence seemed to you short?”

“Who, I, Countess?”

“Do not call me countess,” said she, gently; “I am no longer a countess to any one, and far less to you.”

The young man sprang up, and could not help clasping her to his heart in convulsive delight.

“Oh, my adored Ethel, call me your own Ordener! Tell me,”—and his ardent glances rested on her eyes wet with tears,—“tell me, do you love me still?”

The young girl’s answer went unheard, for Ordener, carried away by his emotions, snatched from her lips with her reply that first favor, that sacred kiss, which in the sight of God suffices to make two lovers man and wife.

Both were speechless, because the moment was one of those solemn ones, so rare and so brief in this world, when the soul seems to feel something of celestial bliss. These instants when two souls thus converse in a language understood by no other are not to be described; then all that is human is hushed, and the two immaterial beings become mysteriously united for life in this world and eternity in the next.

Ethel slowly withdrew from Ordener’s arms, and by the light of the moon each gazed into the other’s face with ecstasy; only, the young man’s eye of fire flashed with masculine pride and leonine courage, while the maiden’s downcast face was marked by that modesty and angelic shame which in a virgin beauty are always blended with all the joys of love.

“Were you trying to avoid me just now,” she said at last, “here in this corridor, my Ordener?”

“Not to avoid you. I was like the unfortunate blind man who is restored to sight after the lapse of long years, and who turns away from the light’s first radiance.”

“Your comparison is more applicable to me, for during your absence my only pleasure has been the presence of a wretched man, my father. I spent my weary days in trying to comfort him, and,” she added, looking down, “in hoping for your coming. I read the fables of the Edda to my father, and when he doubted all men, I read him the Gospel, that at least he might not doubt Heaven; then I talked to him of you, and he was silent, which shows that he loves you. But when I had spent my evenings in vainly watching the arrival of travellers by various roads, and the ships which anchored in the harbor, he shook his head with a bitter smile, and I wept. This prison, where my whole past life has been spent, grew hateful to me; and yet my father, who until you came was all-sufficient for my wants, was still here; but you were not here, and I longed for that liberty which I had never known.”

There was a charm which no tongue can express, in the maiden’s eyes, in the simplicity of her love, and the sweet hesitation of her confession. Ordener listened with the dreamy delight of a being who has been removed from the world of reality to enjoy an ideal world.

“And I,” said he, “no longer desire that liberty which you do not share!”

“What, Ordener!” quickly exclaimed Ethel, “will you leave us no more?”

These words recalled the young man to all that he had forgotten.

“My Ethel, I must leave you this very night. I will see you again to-morrow, and to-morrow I must leave you again, to remain until I may return never more to leave you.”

“Alas!” mournfully broke in the girl, “must you leave me again?”

“I repeat, my beloved Ethel, that I will come back soon to wrest you from this prison or bury myself in it with you.”

“A prisoner with him!” she said softly. “Ah! do not deceive me. Must I only hope for such happiness?”

“What oath do you require? What would you have me do?” cried Ordener; “tell me, Ethel, are you not my wife?” And in a transport of affection he pressed her to his heart.

“I am yours,” she whispered.

The two pure and noble hearts throbbed rapturously together, and were but purer and nobler for the embrace.

At this moment a violent burst of laughter was heard close by. A man wrapped in a cloak opened a dark lantern which he had concealed, and the light suddenly revealed Ethel’s alarmed, confused face and Ordener’s proud but astonished features.

“Courage, my pretty pair! Courage! It strikes me that after so short a walk in the regions of Romance you can scarcely have followed all the windings of the stream of Sentiment, but that you must have taken a short-cut to reach the village of Kisses so quickly.”

Our readers have doubtless recognized the lieutenant, who so cordially admired Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Roused from his reading of “Clelia” by the midnight bell, which the two lovers had failed to hear, he started on his nightly rounds. As he passed the end of the eastern corridor, he caught a few words, and saw what seemed two ghosts moving in the gallery by the light of the moon. Being naturally bold and curious, he hid his lantern under his cloak, and advanced on tiptoe to the two phantoms, so disagreeably awakened from their ecstasy by his sudden burst of laughter.

Ethel made a movement to escape from Ordener; then, returning to his side as if instinctively, and to ask his protection, she hid her burning blushes on her lover’s breast.

He raised his head with all the dignity of a king.

“Woe,” said he, “woe to him who has frightened and distressed you, Ethel!”

“Yes, indeed,” said the lieutenant; “woe befall me if I am so unfortunate as to alarm so sensitive a lady!”

“Sir Lieutenant,” haughtily exclaimed Ordener, “I command you to be silent!”

“Sir Insolent,” replied the officer, “I command you to be silent!”

“Do you hear me?” returned Ordener in tones of thunder. “Buy pardon by your silence.”

“Tibi tua,” responded the lieutenant; “take your own advice,—buy pardon by your silence!”

“Silence!” cried Ordener in a voice which made the windows shake; and seating the trembling girl in one of the old arm-chairs in the corridor, he grasped the officer rudely by the arm.

“Oh, clown!” said the lieutenant, half laughing, half angry; “don’t you see that the doublet which you are so mercilessly crushing is made of the finest Abingdon velvet?”

Ordener looked him full in the face.

“Lieutenant, my patience is not so long as my sword.”

“I understand you, my fine fellow,” said the lieutenant with a sardonic smile. “You want me to do you the honor to fight with you. But do you know who I am? No, no, if you please! ‘Prince with prince; clown with clown,’ as the fair Leander has it.”

“If he had added, ‘Coward with coward,’” Ordener replied, “I should assuredly never have the distinguished honor of measuring weapons with you.”

“I would not hesitate, most worthy shepherd, if you did but wear a uniform.”

“I have neither lace nor fringes, Lieutenant; but I wear a sword.”

The proud youth, flinging back his cloak, set his cap firmly on his head and grasped his sword-hilt, when Ethel, roused by such imminent danger, seized his arm and clasped his neck, with an exclamation of terror and entreaty.

“You are wise, my pretty mistress, if you do not want your young coxcomb punished for his temerity,” said the lieutenant, who at Ordener’s threats had put himself upon his guard without any show of emotion; “for Cyrus was about to quarrel with Cambyses,—if it be not too great an honor to compare this rustic to Cambyses.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Lord Ordener,” said Ethel, “do not make me the cause and witness of such a misfortune!” Then lifting her lovely eyes to his, she added, “Ordener, I implore you!”

Ordener slowly replaced his half-drawn blade in its scabbard, and the lieutenant exclaimed,—

“By my faith, Sir Knight,—I do not know whether you be a knight, but I give you the title because you seem to deserve it,—let us act according to the laws of valor, if not of gallantry. The lady is right. Engagements like that which I believe you worthy to enter upon with me should not be witnessed by ladies, although—begging this charming damsel’s pardon—they may be caused by them. We can therefore only properly discuss the duellum remotum here and now, and as the offended party if you will fix the time, place, and weapons, my fine Toledo blade on my Merida dagger shall be at the service of your chopping-knife from the Ashkreuth forges or your hunting-knife tempered in Lake Sparbo.”

The “duel adjourned,” which the officer suggested was usual in the North, where scholars aver that the custom of duelling originated.

The most valiant gentlemen offered and accepted a duellum remotum. It was sometimes deferred for several months, or even years, and during that space of time the foes must not allude by word or deed to the matter which caused the challenge. Thus in love both rivals forbore to see their sweetheart, so that things might remain unchanged. All confidence was put in the loyalty of a knight upon such a point; as in the ancient tournament, if the judges, deeming the laws of courtesy violated, cast their truncheon into the arena, instantly every combatant stayed his hand; but until the doubt was cleared up, the throat of the conquered man must remain at the selfsame distance from his victor’s sword.

“Very well, Chevalier,” replied Ordener, after a brief reflection; “a messenger shall inform you of the place.”

“Good!” answered the lieutenant; “so much the better. That will give me time to go to my sister’s wedding; for you must know that you are to have the honor of fighting with the future brother-in-law of a great lord, the son of the viceroy of Norway, Baron Ordener Guldenlew, who upon the occasion of this ‘auspicious union,’ as Artamenes has it, will be made Count Daneskiold, a colonel, and a knight of the Order of the Elephant; and I myself, who am a son of the lord high chancellor of both kingdoms, shall undoubtedly be made a captain.”

“Very good, very good, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” impatiently exclaimed Ordener, “you are not a captain yet, nor is the son of the viceroy a colonel; and swords are always swords.”

“And clowns always clowns, in spite of every effort to lift them to our own level,” muttered the soldier.

“Chevalier,” added Ordener, “you know the laws of duelling. You are not to enter this donjon again, and you are not to speak of this affair.”

“Trust me to be silent; I shall be as dumb as Mutius Scævola when he held his hand on the burning coals. I will not enter the donjon again, nor permit any Argus of the garrison to do so; for I have just received orders to allow Schumacker to go unguarded in future, which order I was directed to convey to him to-night,—as I should have done had I not spent most of the evening in trying on some new boots from Cracow. The order, between you and me, is a very rash one. Would you like to have me show you my boots?”

During this conversation Ethel, seeing that their anger was appeased, and not knowing the meaning of a duellum remotum, had disappeared, first softly whispering in Ordener’s ear, “To-morrow.”

“I wish, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld, that you would help me out of the fortress.”

“Gladly,” said the officer, “although it is somewhat late, or rather very early. But how will you find a boat?”

“That is my affair,” said Ordener.

Then, chatting pleasantly, they crossed the garden, the circular courtyard, and the square court, Ordener escorted by the officer of the guard, meeting with no obstacle; they passed through the great gate, the ordnance-room, the parade-ground, and reached the low tower, whose iron doors opened at the lieutenant’s order.

“Good-by, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” said Ordener.

“Good-by,” replied the officer. “I declare that you are a brave champion, although I do not know who you are or whether those of your peers whom you may bring to our meeting will be entitled to assume the position of seconds, and ought not rather confine themselves to the modest part of witnesses.”

They shook hands, the iron grating was closed, and the lieutenant went back, humming an air by Lully, to enjoy his Polish boots and French novel.

Ordener, left alone upon the threshold, took off his clothes, which he wrapped in his cloak and fastened upon his head with his sword-belt; then, putting into practice Schumacker’s principles of independence, he sprang into the still, cold waters of the fjord, and swam through the darkness towards the shore, in the direction of the Spladgest,—a point which he was almost sure to reach, dead or alive.

The fatigues of the day had exhausted him, so that it was only with great difficulty that he landed. He dressed himself hastily, and walked towards the Spladgest, which reared its black bulk before him, the moon having been for some time completely veiled.

As he approached the building he heard the sound of voices; a faint light shone from the opening in the roof. Amazed, he knocked loudly at the square door. The noise ceased; the light disappeared. He knocked again. The light reappeared, and he saw a black figure climb out of the hole in the roof and vanish. Ordener knocked for the third time with the hilt of his sword, and shouted: “Open, in the name of his Majesty the King! Open, in the name of his Serene Highness the Viceroy!”

The door opened slowly, and Ordener found himself face to face with the pale features and tall, thin figure of Spiagudry, who, his clothes in disorder, his eyes fixed, his hair standing erect, his hands covered with blood, held a lamp, whose flame trembled less visibly than his long and lanky figure.

VI.