CHAPTER XXXIII TREACHERY AND VENGEANCE.

  CHAPTER XXXIV THE BLACK STICK IN WAITING.

  CHAPTER XXXV THE FATHER OF THE FAMILY.

  CHAPTER XXXVI THEY JUDGED HIM AS THEMSELVES.

  CHAPTER XXXVII THE VICTIM OF HIS OWN DEVICES.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII TILL DEATH US DOTH SEVER.

  CHAPTER XXXIX THE MONSTER IN HIS TRUE COLORS.

  CHAPTER XL THE MOTLEY DRESS.

  CHAPTER XLI LIKE MEETS LIKE AND SHUDDERS.

  CHAPTER XLII THE SCHEMER OUTWITTED.

  CHAPTER XLIII GHASTLY TROPHIES.

  CHAPTER XLIV BROTHERLY LOVE.

  CHAPTER XLV STRICT JUSTICE.

  CHAPTER XLVI THOUGH LOST TO SIGHT, TO MEMORY DEAR.

  CHAPTER XLVII

  CHAPTER XLVIII.

  CHAPTER XLIX.

  CHAPTER L

  CHAPTER LI

  CONCLUSION.

  CHAPTER I THE MORTUARY AND ITS VISITORS.

  Did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? Oh! did you see it? Who saw it? Who did see it For mercy's sake, who saw it?

  Sterne: Tristram Shandy.

  That's what comes of falling in love, Neighbor Niels. Poor Guth Stersen would not be stretched out yonder on that great black slab, like a starfish forgotten by the tide, if she had kept her mind on mending her father's boat and patching his nets. Saint Usuph, the fisher, console our old friend in his affliction!"

  “And her lover," added a shrill, tremulous voice, " Gill Stadt, that fine young man beside her, would not be there now, if instead of making love to Guth and seeking his luck in those accursed Roeraas mines, he had stayed at home and rocked his little brother's cradle, under the smoky cross-beams of his mother's hut."

  Neighbor Niels, whom the first speaker addressed, interrupted: "Your memory is growing old along with yourself. Mother Oily. Gill never had a brother, and that makes poor Widow Stadt's grief all the harder to bear, for her home is now left utterly desolate; if she looks up to heaven for consolation, she sees nought but her old roof, where still hangs the cradle of her son, grown to be a tall young man, and dead."

  ''Poor mother!" replied old Oily, "it was the young man's own fault. Why should he go to Roeraas to be a miner?"

  "I do believe," said Niels, "that those infernal mines rob us of a man for every escalin's worth of copper which we get out of them. What do you think, Father Braal? "

  “Miners are fools," replied the fisherman. " If he would live, the fish should not leave the water. Man should not enter the bowels of the earth."

  “But," asked a young man in the crowd, "how if Gill Stadt had to work in the mines to win his sweetheart?"

  “A man should never risk his life," interrupted Oily, " for affections which are far from being worth a life, or filling it. A pretty wedding-bed Gill earned for his Guth! "

  “So then that young woman," inquired a curious bystander, " drowned herself in despair at the death of this young man? "

  “Who says so? " loudly exclaimed a soldier, pushing his way through the crowd. " That young girl, whom I knew well, was indeed engaged to marry a young miner who was lately crushed by falling rocks in the underground tunnels of Storwaadsgrube, near Roeraas; but she was also the sweetheart of one of my mates, and as she was going to Munkholm secretly, day before yesterday, to celebrate with her lover the death of her betrothed, her boat capsized on a reef, and she was drowned."

  A confused sound of voices arose: " Impossible, master soldier," cried the old women. The young ones were silent; and Neighbor Niels maliciously reminded fisher Braal of his serious statement: " That 's what comes of falling in love!"

  The soldier was about to lose his temper with his opponents; he had already called them " old witches from the cave of Quiragoth," and they were not disposed to bear so grave an insult patiently, when a sharp and imperious voice, crying " Silence, silence, you old fools! " put an end to the dispute. All w r as still, as when the sudden crow of a cock is heard amid the cackling of the hens.

  Before relating the rest of the scene, it may be well to describe the spot where it occurred. It was as the reader has doubtless guessed one of those gloomy structures which public pity and social forethought devote to unknown corpses, the last asylum of the dead, whose lives were usually sad ones; where the careless spectator, the surly or kindly observer gather, and friends often meet tearful relatives, whom long and unendurable anxiety has robbed of all but one sad hope. At the period now remote, and in the uncivilized region to which I have carried my reader, there had as yet been no attempt, as in our cities of gold and mud, to make these resting-places into ingeniously forbidding or elegantly funereal edifices. Daylight did not fall through tomb-shaped openings, into artistically sculptured vaults, upon beds which seern as if the guardian of the place were anxious to leave the dead some of the conveniences of life, and the pillow seems arranged for sleep. If the keeper's door were left ajar, the eye, wearied with gazing upon hideous, naked corpses, had not as now the pleasure of resting upon elegant furniture and happy children. Death was there in all its deformity, iu all its horror; and there was no attempt to deck its fleshless skeleton with ribbons and gewgaws.

  The room in which our actors stood was spacious and dark, which made it seem still larger; it was lighted only by a broad, low door opening upon the port of Throndhjem, and a rough hole in the ceiling, through which a dull, white light fell, mingled with rain, hail, or snow, according to the weather, upon the corpses lying directly under it. The room was divided by an iron railing, breast-high, running across it from side to side. The public entered the outer portion through the low door; in the inner part were six long black granite slabs, arranged abreast and parallel to each other. A small side door served to admit the keeper and his assistant to either section, their rooms occupying the rear of the building, close to the water. The miner and his betrothed occupied two granite beds; decomposition had already begun its work upon the young woman's body, showing itself in large blue and purple spots running along her limbs on the line of the blood-vessels. Gill's features were stern and set; but his body was so horribly mutilated that it was impossible to judge whether his beauty were really so great as old Oily declared.

  It was before these disfigured remains, in the midst of the mute crowd, that the conversation which we have faithfully interpreted, began.

  A tall, withered old man, sitting with folded arms and bent head upon a broken stool in the darkest corner of the room, had apparently paid no heed until the moment when he rose suddenly, exclaiming, " Silence, silence, you old fools! " and seized the soldier by the arm.

  All were hushed; the soldier turned and broke into a burst of laughter at the sight of his strange interrupter, whose pale face, thin greasy locks, long fingers, and complete costume of reindeer leather amply justified this mirthful reception. But a clamor arose from the crowd of women, for a moment confounded: " It is the keeper of the Spladgest! -That infernal doorkeeper to the dead! -That diabolical Spiagudry!- That accursed sorcerer! "

  “Silence, you old fools, silence! If this be the witches' Sabbath, hasten away and find your broomsticks; if you don't, they'll fly off without you. Let this worthy descendant of the god Thor alone."

  Then Spiagudry, striving to assume a gracious expression, addressed the soldier: " You say, my good fellow, that this wretched woman -"

  “Old rascal! " muttered Oily; "yes, we are all 'wretched women,' to him, because our bodies, if they fall into his claws, only bring him thirty escalins' reward, while he gets forty for the paltry carcass of a man."

  “Silence, old women!" repeated Spiagudry. " In truth, these daughters of the Devil are like their kettles; when they wax warm, they must needs sing. Tell me, my valiant king of the sword, your comrade, this Guth's lover, will doubtless kill himself in despair at her loss, won't he? "

  Here burst forth the long-repressed storm. "Do you hear the miscreant, the old Pagan! " cried twenty shrill, discordant voices. "He would fain see one less man living, for the sake of the forty escalins that a dead body brings him."

  “And what if I would? " replied the keeper of the Spladgest. "Doesn't our gracious king and master, Christian V., -may Saint Hospitius bless him!- declare himself the natural guardian of all miners, so that when they die he may enrich his royal treasury with their paltry leavings? "

  “You honor the king," answered fisher Braal, " by comparing the royal treasury to the strong-box of your charnelhouse, and him to yourself, Neighbor Spiagudry."

  “Neighbor, indeed!" said the keeper, shocked by such familiarity. "Your neighbor! say rather your host! since it may easily chance some day, my dear boatdweller, that I shall have to lend you one of my six stone beds for a week. Besides," he added, with a laugh, " if I spoke of that soldier's death, it was merely from a desire to see the perpetuation of the custom of suicide for the sake of those great and tragic passions which ladies are wont to inspire."

  “Well, you tall corpse and keeper of corpses," said the soldier, " what are you after, with your amiable grimace, which looks so much like the last smile of a man who has been hanged? "

  “Capital, my valiant fellow! " replied Spiagudry. " I always felt that there was more wit beneath the helmet of Constable Thurn, who conquered the Devil with his sword and his tongue, than under the mitre of Bishop Isleif, who wrote the history of Iceland, or the square cap of Professor Shoenning, who described our cathedral."

  "In that case, if you will take my advice, my old bag of leather, you will give up the revenues of the charnelhouse, and go and sell yourself to the viceroy's museum of curiosities at Bergen. I swear to you, by Belphegor, that they pay their weight in gold there for rare beasts; but say, what do you want with me? "

  “When the bodies brought here are found in the water, we have to give half the reward to the fisherman. I was going to ask you, therefore, illustrious heir to Constable Thurn, if you would persuade your unfortunate comrade not to drown himself, but to choose some other mode of death; it can't matter much to him, and he would not wish to wrong the unhappy Christian who must entertain his corpse, if the loss of Guth should really drive him to that act of despair."

  “You are quite mistaken, my charitable and hospitable friend. My comrade will not have the pleasure of occupying an apartment in your tempting tavern with its six beds. Don't you suppose he has already consoled himself with another Valkyria for the death of that girl? He had long been tired of your Guth, by my beard!"

  At these words, the storm, which Spiagudry had for a moment drawn upon his own head, again burst more furiously than ever upon the luckless soldier.

  "What, miserable scamp!" shrieked the old women; " is that the way you forget us? And yet we love such good-for-nothings! "

  The young girls still kept silence. Some of them even thought greatly against their will, of course -that this graceless fellow was very good-looking.

  "Oh, ho! "said the soldier; "has the witches' Sabbath come round again? Beelzebub's punishment is frightful indeed if he be condemned to hear such choruses once a week! "

  No one can say how this fresh squall would have ended, if general attention had not at this moment been utterly absorbed by a noise from without. The uproar increased steadily, and presently a swarm of little ragged boys entered the Spladgest, tumultuously shouting and crowding about a covered bier carried by two men.

  “Where does that come from? " the keeper asked the bearers.

  "From Urchtal Sands."

  “Oglypiglap! " shouted Spiagudry.

  One of the side doors opened, a little man of Lappish race, dressed in leather, entered, and signed to the bearers to follow him. Spiagudry accompanied them, and the door closed before the curious crowd had time to guess, by the length of the body on the bier, whether it were a man or a woman.

  This subject still occupied all their thoughts, when Spiagudry and his assistant reappeared in the second compartment, carrying the corpse of a man, which they placed upon one of the granite couches.

  “It 's a long time since I've handled such handsome clothes," said Oglypiglap; then, shaking his head and standing on tiptoe, he hung above the dead man the elegant uniform of a captain in the army. The corpse's head was disfigured, and his limbs were covered with blood; the keeper sprinkled the body several times from an old broken pail.

  “By Saint Beelzebub! " cried the soldier, " it is an officer of my regiment. Let me see; can it be Captain Bollar, -from grief at his uncle's death? Bah! he is the heir. Baron Randnier? He lost his estate at cards yesterday, but he will win it back to-morrow, with his adversary's castle. Can it be Captain Lory, whose dog was drowned, or Paymaster Stunck, whose wife was unfaithful to him? But, really, I don't see why he should blow out his brains for that! "

  The crowd steadily increased. Just at this instant, a young man who was crossing the wharf, seeing the mob of people, dismounted from his horse, handed the bridle to the servant behind him, and entered the Spladgest. He wore a simple travelling dress, was armed with a sword, and wrapped in a large green cloak; a black plume, fastened to his hat by a diamond buckle, fell over his noble face and waved to and fro upon his lofty brow, shaded by chestnut hair; his boots and spurs, soiled with mud, showed that he had come a long distance.

  As he entered, a short, thick-set man, also wrapped in a cloak and hiding his hands in huge gloves, replied to the soldier.

  “And who told you that he killed himself? That man no more committed suicide, I'll be bound, than the roof of your cathedral set itself on fire."

  As the double-edged sword makes two wounds, this phrase gave birth to two answers.

  “Our cathedral! " said Niels; " it is covered with copper now. It was that miserable Hans who set it on fire to make work for the miners, one of whom was his favorite Gill Stadt, whom you see lying yonder."

  “What the devil! " cried the soldier, in his turn; " do you dare tell me, the second musketeer in the Munkholm garrison, that that man did not blow out his brains! "

  “Ho was murdered," coldly replied the little fellow.

  “Just listen to the oracle! Go along with you. Your little gray eyes can see no better than your hands do under the big gloves with which you cover them in the middle of the summer."

  The little man's eyes flashed.

  “Soldier, pray to your patron saint that these hands may never leave their mark upon your face! "

  "Oh! -enough of this!" cried the soldier, in a rage. Then, pausing suddenly, he said: " No, there must be no word of a duel before dead men."

  The little man growled a few words in a foreign tongue, and vanished.

  A voice cried out: " He was found ou Urchtal Sands."

  “On Urchtal Sands? " said the soldier; " Captain Dispolsen was to land there this morning, from Copenhagen."

  “Captain Dispolsen has not yet reached Munkholm," said another voice.

  “They say that Hans of Iceland haunts those sands just now," added a fourth.

  “Then it is possible that this may be the captain," said the soldier, " if Hans was the murderer; for we all know that the Icelander murders in so devilish a fashion that his victims often seem to be suicides."

  “What sort of man is this Hans? " asked some one.

  “He is a giant," said one.

  “He is a dwarf," said another.

  “Has nobody seen him, then? " put in a voice.

  “Those who see him for the first time, see him for the last time also."

  “Hush! " said old Oily; " they say there are but three persons who ever exchanged human speech with him, that reprobate of a Spiagudry, Widow Stadt, and but he had a sad life and a sad death that poor Gill, who lies yonder. Hush! "

  “Hush! " was repeated on all sides.

  “Now," suddenly exclaimed the soldier, " I am sure that this is indeed Captain Dispolsen. I recognize the steel chain which our prisoner, old Schumacker, gave him when he went away."

  The young man with the black plume broke the silence abruptly: " Are you sure it is Captain Dispolsen? "

  "Sure, by the merits of Saint Beelzebub!" said the soldier.

  The young man left the room hurriedly.

  “Get me a boat for Munkholm," he said to his servant.

  “But, the general, sir?"

  "Take the horses to him. I will follow to-morrow. Am I my own master, or not? Come, night is falling, and I am in haste. A boat!"

  The servant obeyed, and for some time stood watching his young master as he moved away from the shore.

  CHAPTER II. MUNCKHOLM FORTRESS.

  I will sit by you while you tell me some pleasant tale to pass away the time.

  Maturin: Bertram.

  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 bv Danish and Norwegian ships, and on the left by foreign vessels, as prescribed by law. lu 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 Shoenuing'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.