It was eight o'clock in the morning, and already the rays of the sun had strengthened, as Boleslav left the wild tangle of the forest behind him, and beheld his home stretched out at his feet.

He had not set eyes on it for ten years. His first fierce impulse now was to shake his fist at the village which lay there so hypocritically idyllic in the calm of early morning, with its white toy cottages set in bowers of green bushes, its curls of blue-grey smoke, and opalescent slate church spire rising peacefully against the sky.

Beyond were the magnificent groups of old trees with dark, almost black foliage and yellowish trunks belonging to the Castle park, which sloped away on the eastern side of the hill. But the Castle itself, that had crowned the hill with its shining battlemented twin-towers, and had queened the landscape far and wide--where was it? Had the earth opened and swallowed the imposing structure whole? For a moment he was startled and shocked at its total disappearance. Then he remembered. How stupid it was to have forgotten! They had burnt it down, razed it to the ground.

Many and many a time he had thought of that deed of violence, which had laid waste the inheritance of his fathers, with a sort of grim satisfaction. But now, when he saw with his bodily eyes the scene of the conflagration, he felt sullen resentment rise in his heart.

"Incendiaries! Accursed incendiaries!" he cried, and once more shook his fist at the homesteads of his enemies. His enemies? Yes, in the flash of a moment it seemed clearly demonstrated that his father's enemies must be his enemies. Had he not inherited them, together with these woods and fertile valleys, with yonder smoked, blackened heap of ruins (he now noticed it for the first time) that reared itself like the mighty hand of a giant calling down the wrath of Heaven--together with that awful crime, which no one on earth hated more than he did, from which no one had suffered as he had suffered.... And though, instead of filial love, he had cherished nothing but a sensation of paralysing fear towards his father, though for years he had deliberately cut himself adrift from ties of kindred, and the performance of duties that custom and civilisation impose on those who are destined to hand down an ancient name and inherit vast estates--in spite of it all, the fact remained that it was his father's blood flowing in his veins, and he felt it at this moment coursing through them tumultuously, and rising in hot anger at the wrong that had been done his race.

A wild gleam shone in his eyes as he fumbled with his left hand for the leather case strung over his shoulder, from which obtruded the burnished knobs of a pair of cavalry pistols.

"Won't bury him!" he murmured through his clenched teeth, clasping the pistols close. "Won't bury him, indeed! We shall see!" And with a bitter, mirthless laugh, he walked resolutely down into the village.

The one long straggling street lay before him, deserted and basking in the brilliant sunshine. The cart-ruts in the rich clay soil shone as if they had been glazed; bottle-glass and rags from old besoms filled the interstices to prevent the accumulation of stones. On either side of the road stood the thatched cottages of the peasants, shaded by limes and chestnuts, some of whose leaves were even now beginning to look autumnally sere and yellow. These peasants had formerly been under the jurisdiction of the Castle, and only since the new rural laws came into force had been relieved of their service and joined the freemen.

Here and there he saw a new fence painted in glaring colours, as if the owner wished to mark off his recently acquired possession from the rest of the inhabited globe. In other respects the new rÉgime had left everything much the same. Sunflowers and herbs bloomed in the front gardens as they had always done; damp mattresses hung out of the windows to air just as of old. Only the number of taverns had increased. Boleslav counted three, whereas once the Black Eagle had reigned supreme and met all the requirements of the place.

Nearer the church were the white houses of the free artisans, burghers as they were called, who paid to the Castle ground-rent, and therefore enjoyed the privilege of cultivating their own vegetable plots as they pleased. There were a couple of blacksmiths with the sign of a horseshoe over the entrance of their forges, two or three cobblers, a wheelwright, a basketmaker, and a----

He paused and let his eyes rest on a dilapidated tumble-down hovel, the most wretched in the whole row. A dirty green shield hung over the door, bearing the almost obliterated inscription--

"HANS HACKELBERG,

CARPENTER AND PARISH UNDERTAKER."

A coffin, also painted green, supported by pillars, loomed down on the neglected garden, and gave to those who couldn't read, the necessary information. At the sight of it an incident long forgotten occurred to Boleslav with extraordinary distinctness. He saw again a little untidy girl with great, dark, tearful eyes and a tangled cloud of black, curly hair flying about her face and shoulders in wild dishevelment. She had clung to this garden gate with one hand, while with the other she held the corner of her blue print pinafore convulsively pressed against her bosom. A pack of village hobbledehoys were pelting her with sticks and stones. He was not much taller than she was, but at his approach the little crowd made way for him, shy and awestruck. For he was the "young Junker," who had only to lift his finger, they thought, to bring down blessings or curses on their heads.

"What is going on here?" he had asked, whereupon the persecuted child had humbly advanced, and opened her pinafore just wide enough for him to get a glimpse inside.

"Beasts! They wanted to take it away from me!" she had exclaimed, lifting her wet eyes to his, blazing with indignation.

A poor unfledged sparrow, which somehow or other had fallen out of the nest, reposed in the pinafore.

"Give it to me," he had demanded, for he loved young birds; and obediently she had held out her pinafore for him to snatch it away. As beseemed a lordling, he had not said thank you, or troubled himself further about the giver.

And that was she--the girl who, it was said, had shown the French the path by the Cats' Bridge, and had lived with his father as his mistress to the last.

Why had he defended her then? Why had he prevented the pack hunting her down? One blow on the forehead from a stone might then and there have cut short her mischievous career!

He walked on. Now and then a dull, dirty face peered at him curiously through the small, dark window-panes, or a cur barked. But he passed unmolested through the village. It was unlikely enough that any one would recognise him. The parsonage came in view with its shady veranda, trim flower-beds, and nut-trees. It looked as quiet and peaceful as on that morning long ago, when, with a sigh of relief at escaping from the pastor's stern rule, he had seen it for the last time from the post-chaise, and Helene had waved him farewell with her little cambric handkerchief. With lowering brow he now took a short cut that he might avoid passing it. It seemed as if Helene must still be standing on the lawn waving her handkerchief. But what if she had been there? It would have been impossible for him to go to her. A path on his left led down to the river, which divided the Castle domain from the villagers' territory. As he turned into it he became aware of the frightful ravages the fire had made. Instead of the long line of barns and stables which had been ranged on this side of the river stood a row of ruins, falling walls and scorched beams, grown over with celandine and valerian. Beyond could be seen, through gaps in the walls, the courtyard, now a weedy, grass-grown rubbish heap, and on the summit of the hill, behind a lattice formed of the leafless branches of dead elms, a black ruined mass of fantastically jagged brickwork--all that remained of the once proud Castle.

His arms fell heavily to his sides. A sound escaped him like a sob, a sob for vengeance.

He dragged his way laboriously along the banks of the river to the drawbridge, which was the main mode of access to the island; for, since his grandfather's time, the whole of the Castle grounds had been, by means of an aqueduct, practically converted into an island. The drawbridge, at least, was still en evidence. It looked like a remnant of antiquity as it hung with its grey projecting timbers on its black, clumsy buttresses, at the foot of which the ripples broke with a gurgling sound. The rusty chains were tightened, and between terra firma and the floating edge of the bridge was a space of about three feet, which could be jumped with ease. Some one had evidently tried to draw it up, and failed in the effort.

Boleslav sprang over and passed through the stone gateway, whose nail-studded doors, half-burnt, were thrown back on their hinges. Suddenly he heard a sharp clicking sound at his feet resembling the snap of a bowstring. He stopped, and saw, to his horror, the iron semicircle of a fox-trap half-buried in the rubbish, and carefully covered with birch-broom. The long pointed teeth of the iron jaw had closed on each other in a tenacious grip. By a miracle he had escaped an accident which might have laid him up for many weeks.

Feeling the ground with his stick, he pursued his way more cautiously through the refuse and litter, amongst which he came across occasionally a disused waggon or the rotten barrel of a brandy cask held together by iron hoops. He went on, up the hill to the Castle. The path was overgrown with brambles as tall as himself, and again he came on traps, their wide open maws greedily eager to seize him by the leg. The whole place seemed strewn with them--the only signs of civilisation he had as yet encountered.

The Castle lay before him, with yawning window-frames and sundered walls, a complete ruin. Piles of fallen tiles and plaster, between which rank grass and weeds had sprung up, formed a mound round its foundations. The vestibule, with its drooping rafters, had become a perfect bower of creepers and evergreens, whose luxuriant growth seemed almost impenetrable. A white tablet hung among the leaves, on which, in his father's handwriting, were the words, "Caution to trespassers."

He shuddered at this, the first trace he had seen for six years of the man to whom he owed his existence, and whom he had now come to bury.

In a few moments he would be standing probably beside his corpse.

But how was he to find it? What resting-place could his father have found here while yet alive?

No door or unbroken window, no signs of a human habitation, were visible amidst all this fearful wreckage. He turned, and walked slowly the length of the Castle faÇade, past the towers which flanked the gabled roof; here over the blackened stonework the ivy had begun to grow afresh, enshrouding it in a peaceful melancholy. From this point his eye caught a vista of the park, with its giant timber and wealth of undergrowth. And then he saw a few yards off, on the grass-plot where once had stood the statue of the goddess Diana, of which nothing now was left but the shattered fragments and pedestal, a woman.... A slender, strongly-built woman, with long plaits of dark curling hair hanging down her back. Her primitive costume consisted of a red petticoat and a chemise. She was digging energetically with a heavy spade in the dark rich soil, and was apparently too engrossed to notice his approach. She set her naked foot at regular intervals, as if beating time on the hard edge of the spade, and with the slightest possible pressure drove it deep into the earth. As she dug she sang a song on two notes, a high and a low, which welled out of her full breast like the sound of a sweet-toned bell. The chemise, a coarse and roughly made garment, had slipped off her shoulders, laying bare the strong, magnificently moulded neck. When he addressed her, she drew herself erect with a sudden movement of surprise and alarm, and stood before him half naked.

She turned on him a pair of lustrous, large dark eyes. "What do you want here?" she asked, grasping the spade tighter, as if intending to use it as a weapon of defence. Then lifting her other arm she calmly raised the chemise over her shapely bosom.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

Still he did not answer. "So this is she," he was thinking, "the traitress, the courtesan, who---- Should he point his pistol at her, and drive her instantly from the island, so that the ground he trod on might at least be clean?"

Meanwhile his bearing seemed to have convinced her of the peacefulness of his intentions.

"This is no place for strangers," she went on. "Go away again at once. You are lucky not to have been caught in a wolf's trap."

She stood, drawn to her full height, and waved him off. Then gradually she became confused under his searching glance, and regarded him nervously out of the corners of her eyes. Tossing back the black tangle of hair from her sunburnt cheeks, she began to fidget with her inadequate garment, seeming conscious for the first time of her half-nude condition.

"Show me his corpse!" he asked imperatively.

She started and stared at him for a moment with astonished, questioning eyes, then threw herself weeping at his feet.

"GnÄdiger Herr!" she murmured, in a voice stifled with emotion.

He felt her fingers seeking his hand, and pushed her violently from him.

"Show me his corpse!" he commanded again, "and then you may go."

She rose slowly, kicked the spade away with her foot, and led the way down to the park. As they neared some bushes she turned round and said timidly, "There's a trap here." He stepped quickly to one side, otherwise he would have walked straight into the snare. She held back the brambles of the thicket through which they were making their way, to prevent the thorns scratching his face. They came to a clearing in the wood where stood a small one-storied cottage with a tall chimney, surrounded by broken hot-house frames and lime heaps. It was the gardener's house, in which as a boy he had often played with flower-pots, seeds, and bulbs; the one solitary building the ravages of the fire had left untouched, because the incendiary had been unable to find his way to it.

Again his guide warned him. "Take care! That is dangerous," she said, pointing to a heap of earth like a mole-hill. "Whoever steps on it is a dead man," she added half to herself. He knelt down, and with his hands dug out the bomb that lay concealed in the soft earth, and hurled it with all his might far away, so that it exploded with a loud report against the trunk of a tree. She cast a shy, half-scandalised glance at him over her shoulder, for to her what he had done was an act of desecration.

Then she opened the door, and he found himself in a dark passage. The cottage had only two rooms. The one on the left of the front-door had been the gardener's dwelling-room, the other his workshop.

From the former, the door of which stood ajar, issued a powerful death odour.

He went in. A body veiled in white lay on a low bier in the middle of the close, gloomy little room.

"Leave me," he said, without looking round, and he threw back the cloth.

His father's rigid features, covered with bristles, stared up at him. The eyes had sunk far back in his head; the brows were contracted. In the hollows of his cheeks bushy black hair had sprouted, while the beard had turned partially grey. The short, thick nose had shrunk, and close to the firmly-shut lips that had not parted in death lay a deep line, denoting intense suffering, and, at the same time, defiant scorn; as Boleslav looked down on it, the line seemed to deepen still more, and at last to quiver and play round the mouth that was still for ever.

He dropped on his knees, and, with folded hands, prayed a paternoster. His tears fell fast, and rained heavily on the waxen face of the dead man.

"Your guilt is my guilt," he whispered hoarsely. "If I don't defend your memory, who else will? No one in all the world."

Then he covered up the body again with the white cloth, for flies were swarming round it. As he turned away, he observed the girl's dark head pressed against the foot of the bier. Her symmetrical neck and shoulders shone out in relief from the shadowy background.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded roughly. She crouched down, shivering, and raised her left shoulder, as if to ward off a threatened blow. Her eyes flashed a warm ray through the masses of her curly hair.

"No one has ever driven me away from him before," she murmured.

"But I drive you away," he answered with decision.

She rose and quietly vanished. He tore open a window, for he felt half suffocated, and then took a survey of the apartment. It was small and wretched enough, and was filled up without any attempt at arrangement with the most inappropriate and heterogeneous assortment of furniture, most of it evidently rescued in haste from the fire; a gold-legged table harmonised ill with rickety kitchen chairs; a peasant's canopied bed stood near gorgeous consoles of inlaid marble, and a cracked Venetian mirror hung beside a bullfinch's simple wicker cage. But nothing looked more out of its element than the life-size portrait of the beautiful Pole, his grandmother, and the original cause of all the evil that had befallen him. Her haughty, arrogant eye still pierced the distance triumphantly; the small gloved hand still grasped the flexible riding-whip. "Kneel, slave," the full proud lips seemed to say. Only the diamond pin which used to glitter in her bosom like a star was gone, for just there the colour had warped, and the grey canvas beneath was exposed to view. The once elegant and artistically carved frame representing a garland of gilded roses and cupids had suffered too, being chipped and cracked in various places, where patches of coarse orange paint had been daubed on to repair the damage.

"Probably he took every care to save that first," thought Boleslav, and had not the presence of his father's corpse restrained him, he would have pulled it down from the wall, and trampled it under foot.

A case containing arms stood in a corner. The newest and most costly of shooting weapons were ranged there, including every variety of pistol, sword, and spear. Above it was unrolled a plan of the Castle island, showing the spots where ingeniously contrived man-traps, mines, and spring-guns awaited the trespasser--roughly calculated, there were over a hundred of them.

Boleslav shuddered. Surely this unhappy man had been punished enough for his misdeeds in the life he had been compelled to lead during his last few years on earth! Caged up like a hunted wild beast, his murderous contrivances were a perpetual source of menace to himself, for to have forgotten for a moment the position of one of his death-traps must have instantly proved fatal.

When Boleslav went out at the door he stumbled over Regina, who was cowering on the threshold. She started to her feet with a low cry of pain, like the whine of a trodden-on dog. He felt a momentary thrill of compassion for her, but it vanished before he had spoken the kind words that involuntarily rose to his lips.

"What were you lying there for?" he inquired harshly.

"It's my place," she answered, always regarding him with the same humble, luminous glance.

"Indeed? It's a dog's place as a rule."

"It's mine too."

"Your name is Regina Hackelberg?"

"Yes, gnÄd'ger Junker."

"It was you who led the French over the Cats' Bridge?"

"Yes, gnÄd'ger Junker."

"Why did you do it?"

"Because I was told to do it."

"Who told you?"

She cast down her eyes.

"Why don't you answer?"

"Because I was forbidden to tell."

"Who forbade you; my--he?"

"Yes; the gnÄd'ger Herr."

"So that's what you call him, eh?"

"Yes, gnÄd'ger Junker."

"Call me, if you please, Herr, and not Junker. I am not Junker."

"Very well, gnÄd'ger Herr."

"Herr, I say--simply Herr. Do you understand?"

"Yes, gnÄd'ger Herr."

"Himmelkreuzdonnerwetter! Didn't I say you were to call me Herr, without any prefix?"

She trembled nervously at his oath; but when it dawned on her what he meant, a smile of pleasure illumined her face.

"I see, Herr," she said, and nodded.

"I shall expect you to tell me everything," he went on. "Do you hear?"

"The gnÄd'ger Herr did not wish me to speak about it.... Not to any one."

"Did he say not to any one?"

"Yes."

He bit his lip. Why should he inquire further into the matter, when it was all as clear as daylight? This creature had been used as a tool because she was stupid, and bad enough to let herself be so used.

"How old were you at the time the French came?"

Again she cast down her eyes. "Fifteen, Herr."

Once more he felt softened towards her, but almost immediately dark suspicion stifled his pity.

"You were paid for your work?" he asked between his clenched teeth.

"Yes, Herr," she responded calmly.

He was overwhelmed with disgust.

"How much was it? Your bribe?"

"I don't know, Herr."

"What! You mean to say you did not stipulate for a certain sum beforehand?

"She seemed unable to comprehend.

"My father took it all away from me," she answered. "He said it was the wages of sin. It was a whole big handful of gold. I know that."

He looked at her in amazement.

The fine head, with its wealth of wild hair clustering on her neck, was humbly bent. She appeared not to have the slightest perception of the scorn she had aroused in him; or was she so used to it that she took his contempt as a matter of course?

"What were you doing at the Castle when the French were quartered there?"

A dark flush suffused her face, neck and bosom. He had struck some chord of memory that awakened in her a spark of shame.

"I was helping with the sewing," she stammered.

"Why did you come to the Castle?"

"My father told me I must. He said I was to go up and ask the gnÄd'ger Herr if there was any sewing for me to do. I was to earn my bread somehow, he said."

"Oh, indeed!" There was a pause, then he continued: "Go and put on a jacket, Regina."

She passed her hand over her bosom and drew her linen garment tighter round her chest, till the string cut into the swelling flesh.

"Well, why don't you go?"

"I haven't got a jacket."

"What! Didn't he clothe you?"

"They tore my jacket off my back yesterday."

"Who?"

A gleam of burning hate flashed from her eyes.

"Who? Why, they--the people down there, of course," and she spat in the direction of the village.

A feeling of mingled surprise and satisfaction arose within him, for here was a being who could share his hatred; some one whom fate was to associate with him in the coming struggle with the villagers below.

"So the people down there are your foes?" he said.

She laughed jeeringly.

"I should just think they were. They throw stones at me whenever they get the chance--stones as big as this." She joined the hollows of her hands together to show the size.

"For how long have they thrown stones at you?"

"It must be six years," she said after a moment's calculation.

"And how often have they hit you?"

"Oh, lots of times. Look here!" and she let the chemise slip down again, to display a scar extending from her shoulder to the root of her bosom, which marked the warm olive skin with a thin line of scarlet.

"But now I always take the tub with me."

"The tub?"

"Yes; the wash-tub. I hold it over my head and neck when they come after me."

What a wretched existence was hers--worse than a dog's!

"Why have you gone on staying here when they treat you thus?" he asked. "There are other places in the world."

She gazed at him in astonishment, as if she did not grasp his meaning.

"But I belong here," she said.

"You might at least have left the island, and betaken yourself somewhere where your life would not always be in danger."

She gave a short laugh.

"Was I to leave him to starve?" she asked; and then, growing suddenly red, she added, correcting herself shyly, "I mean the gnÄd'ger Herr."

He nodded to reassure her, for she looked as if she expected to be chastised on the spot for her slip of speech, poor miserable creature!

"I don't go down there oftener than I can help. Generally I go over the Cats' Bridge by night to Bockeldorf, three miles away. There, at Bockeldorf, I could get flour and meat, and everything else that he--the gnÄdiger Herr--wanted, if I paid double the price for it, and be back by the morning. But sometimes it's impossible to get there--in a snow-storm, for instance, or a flood. So when the weather was very bad I was obliged to go down to the village, and had to pay still more money there, and even then perhaps get nothing but blows. So"--she laughed a wild, almost cunning laugh--"I just took what came handy."

"That means--you thieved?"

She gaily nodded assent, as if the achievement was deserving of special praise.

She was so depraved, then, this strange, savage girl, that she was quite incapable of distinguishing the difference between right and wrong!

"And what were you doing in the village yesterday?" he questioned anew.

"Yesterday? Well, you see, he must be buried. It's time, Herr, quite time. And I thought to myself, however much I cry, that won't get him under the earth."

"So you cried, did you?" he asked contemptuously.

"Yes," she replied. "Was it wrong?"

"Well, never mind: go on."

"And so I took the tub and went down to the pastor's. But the pastor said I mustn't contaminate his house by coming near it, so on I went to landlord Merckel, who is mayor as you know, Herr. And there the soldiers saw me----"

"What soldiers?"

"The soldiers who have just come from the war." She paused again.

"Go on!" he commanded.

"And the soldiers cried out 'Down with her--strike her down!' and then the chase began, and my father joined in and called out 'Down with her!' too, but he was only drunk, as he nearly always is.... The stones flew about, and the women and children caught hold of me and held me fast, that they might strike me; but I had the tub and held it with both hands high over their heads, hacking with it right and left like this." She illustrated her story by holding up her rounded muscular arms in the air, and bringing them down again like a pair of clubs.

The tall, magnificent figure before him, reminded him of some antique statue in bronze. Strange, that in spite of all the degradation and vileness amidst which she had been reared, it should have blossomed into such fulness of triumphant splendour. There was something classic, too, in the mere unaffected freedom with which she exposed its charms. But of course in reality she was nothing but a shameless hussy, long since lost to all sense of decency.

"Perhaps you have got a shawl, if not a jacket," he suggested, turning his back.

"Yes, I have a shawl, a woollen one."

"Then put it on at once."

She disappeared silently through the door before which they had been standing, and after a few moments returned in a brilliant red tippet which she had crossed over her breast and tied in a knot behind. Now that she had awakened to the fact that her half-clothed condition shocked him, she began to be ashamed of even her naked arms, which she had no means of concealing. She kept them folded behind her back, and crept into the darkest corner of the passage.

"Did they refuse to bury the gnÄdiger Herr?" he demanded.

"No-no-one said anything," she answered, "because I never asked."

"Why not?"

"Because I couldn't for the stones that were hurled at me. And then I thought it was no good. Nobody would ever come and fetch him. I might as well shovel him in myself, as best I could."

"You proposed to do it! Without help?"

"If I could carry him from the Cats' Bridge into the house without help, I ought to be able to bury him too."

"Where--in the churchyard?"

"The churchyard? Ha! ha! That would have been a pretty piece of business. I should never have got him through the village and been alive afterwards to tell the tale. It was in the garden, over by the Castle. I was in the middle of digging the grave when the Herr arrived."

Now he felt strongly inclined to praise her. Such canine fidelity, unquestioning, unhesitating, touched him deeply. Did not the girl who had faced death readily a thousand times for her master's sake, deserve some sort of reward? Yes. He would repay her in coin; good hard cash would doubtless be more acceptable than anything else, poor thing! And, directly he had laid his father in his last resting-place, he would dismiss her from his service. Till then she might stay where she was.

But, at all costs, his father's bones must lie with those of his ancestors. His first duty, his bounden duty as a son, was to procure for him a decent burial, such as was granted to every Christian human being. No matter what difficulties might stand in the way, he determined to accomplish the sacred task, even if he were driven to resort to extreme measures, and call in the aid of the law. He knew at least one magistrate in Prussia, a relative of his mother's, who would take his side, and enforce justice with an armed contingent if the worst came to the worst.

He was just in the act of walking off in the direction of the village, when it occurred to him that it was impossible to take a hundred steps on his own property without being snared into a hundred death-traps. Without the woman he detested to guide him, he was as helpless as a child.

"Lead me to the drawbridge," he said; "and while I am gone clear away all the traps."

"Yes, Herr."

But she remained motionless, as if rooted to the spot.

"What are you waiting for?"

"I beg the Herr's pardon, but he has been travelling all night, and I thought----"

"What did you think?"

"That the Herr must be very tired, and hungry perhaps; and----"

She was right He could hardly stand from sheer exhaustion. But the idea of taking even a crust from her hands filled him with loathing. Rather would he be fed by his enemies.