A Hero of the Pen

"Do you know where your master is gone?" she asked resolutely.

"No, I do not know," replied Frederic crabbedly; "but I tell you now in full earnest, Miss–"

"He is in the mountains," interrupted Jane. "I must go there at once; I must follow him."

Frederic stared at her in utter consternation. "God help me, Miss," he said, "but I believe you have lost your reason! Would you go to the mountains? Among the sharpshooters? You may as well make yourself content, you certainly cannot pass our lines: they are well guarded."

"I know it!" said Jane, "but yet I must go. They will order me back, but you, Frederic, know the pass-word, and must help me through the outposts."

In the excess of his horror, Frederic almost let his musket fall; but he drew himself bolt upright and with an expression of righteous indignation and boundless self-importance, he gazed down upon the young lady.

"Miss Forest," he said very emphatically, "anybody would know you come from that savage, godless America. Such wickedness would never enter the mind of a German Christian man or woman. I must help you through the outposts? Through our outposts? And to crown all, I am to give you the pass–word! You surely have no idea of war, or of what a soldier's duty really is!"

Jane stepped nearer to him and her voice sank to a low whisper.

"The life of your master is at stake; listen Frederic,–your master! A danger threatens him which does not come from the enemy, of which he has no suspicion, and which I alone know. He is lost, if I do not succeed in warning him. Do you understand now that I must go to him at any price?"

A quiver of pain passed over the soldier's face. "I thought as much!" he cried despairingly. "I knew that something dreadful would happen to-night!"

"There will be no dreadful event," said Jane confidently, "if I can only reach your master in season; and I can reach him, if you make it possible for me to follow him. You now know how much is at stake, Frederic; you will help me, will you not?"

Frederic shook his head. "I must not!" he said in a hollow voice.

In despairing entreaty, Jane grasped both his hands. "But I tell you, the life of your master is in peril; without my warning, he is lost! Will you let him die when a single word from you can save him? Good Heavens! Frederic, you must see that here is no treachery, no deception; that only a mortal agony for him alone urges me on. By your love for your master I implore you, help me through the lines!"

Frederic gazed silently down upon her; he saw and felt the truth of her words; a deathly anguish spoke from her face, entreated from her lips; and this anguish was for his master, concerned only his rescue. There were tears in the poor fellow's eyes; they fell slowly down his cheeks; but he only grasped his musket the more firmly.

"I cannot, Miss Forest! I cannot be false to my duty here; I could not help you through our lines, even to save my master's life. Don't look at me in that way; don't entreat me further! By God above, I cannot do as you wish!"

Jane drew back, and let his arm fall. Her last hope had vanished; the sentiment of duty had more power over Frederic, than even his passionate love for his master. Atkins was right; these Germans were terrible in their iron-sentiment of duty.

"And so Walter is lost!" she moaned faintly.

Frederic shuddered. "Tempt me no further, Miss Forest," he said, "Frederic Erdmann is no traitor!"

Jane trembled at these words. Her wide-open eyes were full of terror.

"What name is that? What are you called?"

"Erdmann! Did you not know that? But you have always heard them call me only Frederic."

Jane leaned against the base of the statue, her breast rose and fell in uncontrollable emotion, her eyes hung upon the man standing before her with an expression that could not be defined; sorrow, anxiety, consternation, all flamed up in that glance, and through all, beamed something like the presage of an infinite happiness.

"Do you know–do you know a young mechanic, Franz Erdmann, of M., who wandered over to France, lived in B., and is now serving in the Prussian army?"

"Why should I not know him?" replied Frederic, surprised more at the strange tone of the question than at the glance which accompanied it. "He is my brother, that is, my foster-brother, as he is usually called."

"And so"–Jane's voice was almost stifled in her terrible excitement–"and so you was that boy whom Erdmann's parents brought from Hamburg?–who grew up with him in M., and after the death of his parents, was adopted by pastor Hartwig! Speak, for God's sake–yes or no!"

"Certainly it was I," replied Frederic. "But where in the world, Miss Forest, did you learn all this!"

Jane did not answer. She summoned all her strength; upon the next question, hung life or death for her.

"And Professor Fernow! He too was reared by pastor Hartwig; but how came he there!"

"Well, it all happened very simply; the pastor took us both into his house the same year. Me first, out of favor and sympathy, because no one else would have me, and a few months later, my master, his sister's son, because his parents had suddenly died, and he had no other relations. As I was already there, he could not very well send me away, and so he kept us both. He did not do it willingly, and we had to pay dear for the bread he gave us; I by hard work around the house, and my master at the writing-desk; the pastor was determined he should be a scholar, but at the first, he would far rather have made verses. Well, all that soon ended; pastor Hartwig kept us well in rein.–God rest his soul! It did not go well with me until he really was at rest, and my young master, who became his heir, took me in charge. We have been almost twenty years together."

Jane had listened breathlessly, her hands pressed against her heart, which she thought must burst, and yet a stony burden had been lifted from it. The out-cry of happiness that broke from her inmost soul, was it for the brother found at last, or for him she had so long regarded as a brother! She did not know, but even the thought of Walter's dangers, receded at this moment; she was conscious of only one thing:–the fearful contradiction in her soul was settled; the terrible conflict ended. Whatever might come now, love for Walter Fernow was no longer sin!

CHAPTER XXVII.

Treason

"Frederic!" She laid her hand on his arm, but Frederic turned suddenly away, and gazed intently in the opposite direction.

"What has happened! Let me go, Miss! There is danger in the grotto over yonder. Who is there? Answer!"

No answer came, but Frederic needed none; he knew enough already. The moonbeams falling obliquely at the entrance of the grotto, had revealed all to him; he had seen dark forms and gleaming weapons. In the moment of danger, Frederic's mental capabilities were not so under par as in common life. Instinct supplied him what he lacked in intelligence, and this always guided him aright.

He did not pause to reflect that his two comrades being much nearer the castle than he, could sooner give the alarm, that the most important thing was to know the direction whence the danger came; but he acted as if he had duly considered all this, and summoning the full strength of his powerful lungs, he cried in a voice that rang through the whole park:

"Treason! An attack! The enemy are here! They come from the grotto! Attention, soldiers!"

Then he fired his musket in that direction, and seizing Jane's arm, bore her along with him. The warning had reached the ear of his comrades, the cry again plainly echoed through the silent night, and this time it must have reached the castle. But the enemy remained no longer idle; further concealment was impossible. Half a dozen shots fell at the same time; Frederic paid no heed, but with a low cry of pain, Jane sank upon her knees.

"Forward, Miss, forward into the bushes!" he cried, and rushed on. Jane tried to follow, but her wounded foot forbade. She sank to the earth.

"Fly!" she moaned breathlessly. "Save yourself! I must remain behind!"

Frederic looked down at her, but he saw not now the white, beautiful face, which, would have plead mightily with any other man for her rescue; he thought only that here was a helpless, wounded woman, whom he must abandon if he sought to save himself. Before his soul, clear as the lightning's flash, gleamed only one remembrance: "Tell him that Miss Forest was the one dearest to me in the whole world! He is to guard her, if he must,–with his life!"

As if she had been a child, the gigantic man lifted her from the ground, and retreated with her in his arms. The conclusion and its execution were the work of a moment. The enemy did not follow these two; to leave that secure retreat would have been madness. But the man who had betrayed them was not to escape unpunished. Shot after shot came from the grotto, and our fugitives on this boundless grassy expanse, in the full glow of this bright moonlight, were a mark for every bullet. Frederic now required threefold time for a path he alone could have trodden in a few moments. Jane had twined her arms around his neck; but even here her resolution did not forsake her; she knew that every movement on her part would retard Frederic's steps, that perfect immobility would lighten his burden, and she lay quiet as the dead in his arms. Around both hissed the bullets, but the French shot badly to-night; not one hit. All at once Frederic shuddered convulsively, then he halted, and a hollow moan of agony broke from his lips.

"For God's sake, are you hit?" cried Jane, and sought to loose herself from his arms, but with iron strength, he held her fast. Then he went on again, but more slowly, more circumspectly than before, Jane heard the agonized convulsive heaving of his breast, she felt something hot and moist ripple down upon her hand now loosened from his neck; but still he went on. She gazed anxiously into his face, clearly defined in the bright moonbeams, and an involuntary terror came over her; she seemed to gaze into the face of her dead father. Frederic's heavy, unintellectual features at this moment had a truly frightful likeness to her own,–to those others the grave so long had hidden. It was this expression which had all at once ennobled and transfigured Frederic's face, and this similarity also betrayed his origin, more clearly than all other proofs; it was the grim determination, the hard, perverse inflexibility of the Forests, it was their stony defiance even of the impossible.

And he indeed had overcome it, the impossible; he bore her away over that grassy level and a stretch beyond into the alley, into the secure protection of the trees, and then only did he let her glide from his arms. Meantime, all had become excitement in the direction of the castle; voices rang out, words of command were heard; quick as lightning, the alarm signal echoed back from the village, and at the head of the soldiers quartered at the castle, Lieutenant Witte stormed up the avenue.

"Are they at the grotto?" he cried, recognizing Frederic by his uniform. "Come with us. Forward!"

He rushed on, the others after him; but Frederic did not join them, he did not go forward. For a moment more he stood upright, then he fell heavily to the earth.

With a cry of agony Jane sank down at his side; but over the leather bonds across the soldier's breast, flowed a deep-red tide–the brother had with his life-blood saved his sister!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Sacrifice of Blood

An hour had passed, the fight had proved shorter and less serious than had been apprehended. The enemy, proceeding from the forest and gathering in small numbers at the grotto, had intended to surprise the castle in which the German officers were quartered, and by capturing them to leave the force in the village without leaders, and an easy prey to the attack of their main body. Frederic's cry of alarm had broken up their plan of moving on in perfect silence to the castle, and the hand-to-hand fight in the grotto had been of short duration. A few French fusileers had fallen, half a dozen had been taken prisoners, and the others had fled in wild disorder to the forest. By this movement the secret way of egress had been discovered and guarded. A few of the Germans were more or less seriously wounded; none mortally but Frederic, who was to be the only sacrifice.