Vineta, the Phantom City

"Mother!" The young man's voice faltered in agonized, heart-rending supplication. "Do not let me leave you in this way. If I cannot see you, give me one parting word–one only. It will be the last. Do you not hear me, mother?"

He fell upon his knees, and pressed his forehead against the bolted door, as if it must open to him. In vain. The door remained closed, and no sound came from within. The mother had no farewell for her son, the Princess Zulieski had no word of forgiveness for his offence.

Leo rose from his knees. His face was still rigid and colorless, but around the quivering lips and in the bloodshot eyes there was an expression of wild, intense, unutterable agony. He did not speak another word, he silently took up his cloak, threw it around his shoulders, and approached the door. His brother vainly tried to detain him.

"Let me go!" he cried, pushing Waldemar aside. "Tell Wanda–no, tell her nothing. She does not love me, she has discarded me for you. Farewell!"

He rushed away. For some moments Waldemar stood gazing after him, entirely bewildered and helpless. Then collecting his thoughts, prompted by a sudden resolution, he hastened to his mother's room. He found Paul standing at the vestibule. The old man was in great trouble at the terrible tidings he had just heard,–at the sudden departure of the young prince, who had rushed past him without a word.

"Paul," said Waldemar, "follow Prince Zulieski at once; he is rushing on to certain death. He intends to cross the boundary by daylight."

"God in Heaven!" ejaculated the old man.

"I cannot restrain him," continued Waldemar, "and I dare not aid him openly,–that would only augment his danger; but in his present desperate mood, some person must accompany him. You ride well; take a horse at once. The prince is on foot; you can overtake him before he reaches the boundary. You know the route he will take, and the place where he will attempt to cross. It is the spot where secret communication is still kept up with the insurgents, and cannot be far from the house of my border-forester."

Paul did not reply; he did not dare confirm the truth, and he had not the courage to deny it. Waldemar understood his silence.

"The strictest watch is kept at that very place,–so I hear from our officers. I do not know how my brother succeeded in passing through this morning; he cannot do it again. Hurry after him, Paul. He must not attempt to cross there. Let him try any other place, but not that. He must wait until night; he can conceal himself in the forester's house. Fellner has charge there now; he sides with me, but he will not in any event betray Leo. Hasten!"

Paul needed no urging. Intense anxiety for his young master would be sure to hurry him away.

"I shall be ready in five minutes," he said; "and I shall ride as if my life were at stake."

A few minutes after, he rode swiftly out of the yard. Waldemar, who gazed after him, breathed more freely. "This was the only resource left me," he thought. "Paul may yet overtake my brother, and save him from almost certain death."

Four, five hours passed, bringing no tidings of Leo. Communication–usually so frequent between the frontier and Villica, which was on the direct route to L–, seemed broken off to-day. Waldemar paced his room restlessly, trying to take Paul's long absence as a good omen. He must surely have overtaken Leo, and would remain at his side as far as the boundary. Perhaps both were concealed in the forester's house. At last–it was late in the afternoon–the superintendent entered hastily and unannounced.

"Herr Nordeck, will you come out into the court?" he said; "your presence is very necessary."

"What is the matter?" asked Waldemar. "Has anything happened to the wounded men?"

"O, no," returned Frank; "but I wish you to come yourself. We have tidings from the frontier; a desperate battle was fought at W– this morning with Count Morynski's corps."

"And how has it resulted?" asked Waldemar, breathlessly.

"The insurgents are defeated, and it is said that they owe this result either to treason or to an unexpected attack. They defended themselves bravely, but were compelled to yield to superior forces. The survivors are scattered, and have fled in every direction."

"And the leader, Count Morynski?"

The superintendent cast down his eyes, and was silent.

"Is he dead?"

"No; but he is severely wounded, and in the hands of the enemy."

Waldemar had always been estranged from his uncle, but he knew how tenderly and passionately Wanda loved her father. If he had fallen in battle, she could have borne it better than to know that he was wounded, suffering, and a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. Who was responsible for the defeat of the corps which should have been protected from an attack in the rear by the detachment of Prince Zulieski?

Waldemar summoned all his self-control. "Who brought you this news?" he asked. "Is it reliable?"

"Paul brought it," replied the superintendent. "He is over yonder–"

"And why does he bring you tidings, when he knows that I have been for hours anxiously awaiting his return? Why does he not come to the castle?"

The superintendent's eyes again sought the floor. "He could not venture–the princess or the young countess might have come to the window; they must be prepared for evil tidings. Paul is not alone, Herr Nordeck–"

"What has happened? My brother–"

"Prince Zulieski has fallen. Paul brings the corpse–"

Waldemar was speechless. A great blow had fallen upon him, depriving him, for the instant, of sense and motion. All was dark around him; for some moments he covered his eyes with his hands, then he roused himself by a powerful effort, and hastened to the superintendent's house. Paul came to meet him, gazing timidly into the face of the man he had been taught to regard as an enemy, but the sorrow depicted there plainly told him that the brother of his young master, weighed down by a sorrow greater even than his own, stood before him. The old man's self-control gave way.

"Our princess!" he wailed, "she will not survive it, neither will the Countess Wanda."

"Did you not overtake the prince?" asked Waldemar.

"Yes," replied Paul, in a faltering voice; "I reached him in season, and gave him your warning. At first he would not listen; he was determined to cross the border at all hazards. He thought the denseness of the forest would protect him. I entreated, I fell upon my knees, and asked if he would allow himself to be shot down like a hunted deer. This at length moved him; he consented to wait until evening. We were just considering whether we could venture to seek admittance to the forest-house, when we were met–"

"By whom? A patrol?"

"No, by the tenant of Janowo, whom we could trust implicitly, as he has always belonged to our party. He told us that there was fighting at W–, that the battle was still in progress, and that the Morynskian corps was struggling desperately and against great odds. Our young prince now lost all reason and discretion; but one idea possessed him,–to reach W–, and plunge into the thick of the fight. We could not restrain him; he would not listen to us. Shortly after he left us, we heard shots; at first there were two in quick succession, then half a dozen all at once, and then–" The old man could not go on; his voice choked, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

"I have brought back his body," he resumed, after a pause. "The colonel who visited you at the castle yesterday gave me permission and assistance. But I dared not take him to the castle. He lies in there."

He pointed to the opposite room. Waldemar entered the chamber of death alone. The last gray beams of the departing day faintly lighted the room and revealed the lifeless form of the young prince. The landlord of Villica stood in silence by his brother's corpse. The handsome face, once glowing with animation and happiness, was rigid and cold; the dark, flashing eyes were closed, and the breast which had swelled so high with dreams, of freedom and a glorious future bore the death-wound. Whatever wrong this fiery, impulsive temperament had committed was now expiated by the blood that welled from his riddled breast, coloring his apparel with dark and fatal stains.

Only a few hours before, all the passions of youth had stormed within this lifeless frame,–hatred and love, jealousy and revenge, despair over the deed he had unwittingly committed and its frightful consequences. Now all was over, chilled in the icy repose of death. Yet upon that still, white face was stamped, as if for all eternity, that expression of bitter agony which had quivered around the lips of the son when his mother refused him a last adieu, when she let him go from her bolted door without her forgiveness, without one parting word. All else had vanished with life, but the young prince had taken this anguish with him, even into the throes of dissolution: the veil of the tomb itself would not hide it.

Waldemar left the room speechless and sad as he had entered it. As he approached those who were awaiting him without, his pallid face and trembling voice attested that he had loved his brother.

"Bring the body to the castle," he said; "I will go on before, and break the tidings to my mother."

CHAPTER XXV.

HUBERT GROWS MISANTHROPIC

The Polish insurrection of 1863-4, whose events have already passed into history, was subdued; tranquillity reigned throughout the conquered province, but it was the tranquillity of desolation. Those wintry March days of a year ago, which had brought such calamity to the main actors in our story, had also witnessed the downfall of a nation's cause and crushed out the last hope of national freedom from the hearts of a brave, patriotic people. Russia, aided by Prussia and with the connivance of Austria, had trampled out the last embers of the revolution. The overthrow of Count Morynski's corps had been the turning-point of the revolt on the German frontier. From that moment the course of the revolution in Prussian Poland was downward.

The loss of Count Morynski, who was by far the ablest revolutionary leader in this province, and the death of Leo Zulieski, whose name and family traditions gave so much prestige to the patriot cause, were heavy blows for a faction already rent by internal discord and rivalry. Now and then the waning star, which was destined so soon to go out in utter darkness, flamed up anew; there were still battles and skirmishes animated by the courage of despair and signalized by heroic deeds; but the fact became more and more apparent that the cause for which Poland was fighting was a lost cause. The revolt, which had at first extended over the whole country, became pent up within ever-narrowing limits; one post after another fell, one division after another was dispersed or disbanded, and the insurrection, which had at first assumed such alarming dimensions, was extinguished even to the last spark. Only desolation and ruin marked the final desperate struggle of a people whose heroism and misfortunes appeal to the sympathies of the civilized world, but which was doomed to such entire defeat and ruin, that the country for which they fought exists no longer as an independent power upon the map of nations.

A long time elapsed ere the fate of Count Morynski was decided. He awoke to consciousness in a prison, and as the surgeons pronounced his wound mortal, no legal proceedings could be instituted against him. For many months he hovered between life and death, and upon his partial recovery he was condemned to execution. A revolutionary leader taken in arms upon the battle-field could expect no other fate. Severe illness alone prevented the immediate carrying out of his sentence; upon his final recovery the revolt was quelled, the rebel army annihilated, and the victors could afford to be magnanimous. His sentence was commuted to life-long banishment to one of the remotest provinces of Siberia,–a questionable act of clemency to a man whose whole existence had been one long aspiration for freedom, and whose personal liberty had never known restraint save during his brief period of exile in France.

He had not seen his family since that evening at Villica when he had bidden them adieu for the battlefield. Neither his daughter nor his sister was allowed to visit him, his rigid confinement being due to the attempts they had made to liberate him. In one of these ineffectual attempts, Paul, the old, faithful servant of the family, had been shot dead by the prison-guard. The princess and Wanda finding all attempts at rescue unavailing, had been compelled to yield to the inevitable, and leave the unhappy man to his fate.

The princess, immediately after the death of her younger son, went to live at Radowicz. It seemed only natural that the bereaved mother and the afflicted daughter should seek each others society; but Waldemar better understood the reason of his mother's departure: he knew that she could not endure the daily presence of the son who had unconsciously defrauded the other and dearer one of Wanda's love, who had goaded him on to that rash deed which led to his untimely death and to the defeat of the cause so near her heart. He knew also that his manner of ruling Villica wounded and exasperated his mother; he had seized the reins with an iron grasp, and he would not let go his hold. No sooner had the outside revolt, which had so deeply implicated his estates, been suppressed, than he set about a thorough reorganization of Villica, bringing everything under his own personal control, and holding all his subordinates to a strict account, after he had summarily dismissed those who refused to obey his commands. His aim was to create a new order of things from the ruins of the old; and although the task was a herculean one, he was equal to it. His tenants soon learned to recognize the controlling hand of the master and to yield to it; revolt upon his estates ended with the departure of the princess and the downfall of the revolution.

Superintendent Frank, at the young landlord's earnest solicitation, concluded to remain a year longer at Villica, but when affairs there were settled upon a secure basis, he carried out his long-cherished purpose and bought an estate of his own, a pleasant and well-ordered manor in another province. In two months he would take possession.

At Gretchen's marriage, her father had given her a dowry far surpassing even Assessor Hubert's selfish anticipations. The marriage had taken place in October, and the newly-wedded pair lived in J–, where Professor Fabian had entered upon the duties of his new position, and where he was meeting with very flattering success. He soon overcame his morbid fear of publicity, and fully justified the expectations he had raised as author of "The History of Ancient Germany." His modest and amiable disposition, so unlike the offensive egotism of his predecessor, won him general favor; and his handsome young wife, who was enabled by her father's generosity to make his home elegant and attractive, knew how to do the honors of her house and to maintain her husband's position so worthily, that the Fabians stood socially upon a most agreeable and enviable plane. They had not visited the old home since their marriage, but they were expected there in a few days.