fritz’s death remained a mystery, at the solution of which we could only hazard various conjectures. but that it was a man’s work i had little doubt. the death-wound in the throat was the clean stab of a knife or dagger. my idea was that the man, a spy, had been hiding in order to watch us, and being attacked by the dog had silenced him in the most effectual manner; then before i could follow, making his escape under cover of the nearest hedge, which would hide his retreat right down to the road, whence, if he thought it necessary, he could cross the river, and get off into the woods, when pursuit would be hopeless.
but, whatever the explanation of the affair might be, it had happened so swiftly and so mysteriously as to cause a very uneasy feeling, a serious apprehension for my friends’ lives, which i could not disguise from myself. now i was indeed beginning to realize the malignant tenacity of chancellor rallenstein. all the same, this fresh evidence rather braced my determination to outwit him. i gave up my long rides in the country round, and confined myself to walking about the grounds and the village, keeping a sharper look-out than ever.
a very uncomfortable feeling is that of being secretly watched. and that we were under a stealthy observation we all instinctively felt.
[pg 78]
it is annoying, putting aside the danger, and it plays the devil by the nerves. to wake up in the morning with the feeling that your actions that day will have mysterious eyes upon them, governed and directed with an inscrutable and determined will, ah! it makes one pray for an open enemy. the tension was telling upon us; on me probably least of all, since i had the nerves of a steeplechase rider, and fresh air and exercise kept me fit. but i felt things could not go on indefinitely as they were. as the days and weeks wore on, rallenstein would scarcely be likely to rest content with merely keeping his marked-down quarry under observation. our staying on at sch?nval was simply waiting for the assassin’s stroke that was being prepared. one side or other must force the situation. i therefore determined that we should risk it; but, as it turned out, the forcing came from the other side.
i was walking near the village one afternoon, turning over certain plans in my mind, when i made a singular discovery. i ought to mention that the neighbourhood was rich in geological treasures. there had been, years before, a landslip, by which many hidden things of past ages had been brought to light. i had several times climbed about this region, more to explore its picturesque ruggedness than for any geological curiosity i possessed. on this day something prompted me to go through the landslip again. so i turned up the path behind the inn, which led along a wooded ascent to where the fissured rocks and tree-grown boulders lay in romantic confusion. at one point in the irregular acclivity there was placed at some twenty yards from the path an ancient stone sarcophagus, which had been unearthed at some time, and, its value being probably deemed less than the cost of removal, had been left there to form one of the attractions of the place, and, indirectly, of the inn [pg 79]below. i had passed this before, but had never taken the trouble to turn off the path in order to examine it more closely. the present and future had been too absorbing to let one care about the past. but now i did so. i stepped aside and strolled slowly towards the object of my curiosity. as i approached, to my astonishment a head appeared above the edge of the stone coffer, and a girl’s laughing face turned a sort of petulant inquiry towards me. saturated as i was with mistrust, i hardly knew whether to be suspicious of this apparition or not. a village girl, perhaps, i thought, although she certainly did not look it. i resolved to find out.
“i beg your pardon,” i said in german. “i am sorry to have disturbed you, but i was about to examine this old object, not thinking any one was inside it.”
her smile deepened into a laugh. “how should you?” she replied. “it is the last place you would expect to find at least a living person in.”
i was german scholar enough to know that it was not her native tongue. she spoke it prettily, indeed, but ungrammatically, and with a foreign accent.
“i won’t disturb you,” i said. “another day——”
she had risen, stepped on to the ledge of the great coffin, and now jumped down on the ground beside me.
“there! i won’t disturb your scientific studies,” she said. “you are english, are you not?” she added, in our language.
“i am. like you.”
“am i?”
“i think so.”
“a good guess.”
“hardly a guess. you could scarcely be anything else.”
“by my bad german, or something worse?”
“by your good english.”
[pg 80]
“and my bad style?”
“not at all.”
i looked at her as she sat on the edge of the sarcophagus, kicking her feet to and fro and keeping her eyes quizzically on me. she seemed about nineteen; her manner rather older than that. it was sharp, and had a suggestion of a woman of the world. on the other hand, she was dressed quite girlishly; her skirt was short, she had on a simple straw hat with little trimming, and wore no ornaments save a plain gold bar fastening her collar.
“i hope you are not going to let me frighten you away,” she said roguishly. “i can easily find a more comfortable seat, and science must be before everything, as i know to my cost.”
“i cannot plead guilty to the charge of being scientific.”
“that’s a comfort. why, then, do you want to examine this stupid old coffin? curiosity, eh? all tourists are so curious. they will go miles to see a thing abroad they would not cross the road to look at at home.”
“i cannot say that my curiosity has not been rewarded. although not quite satisfied.”
“how?”
“i should like, if not asking too much, to know what made you choose that gruesome relic for a resting-place?”
she looked at me queerly and laughed. “your curiosity shall be satisfied. in the first place, it is more comfortable than it looks.”
i wondered a little at that, but did not say so.
“in the second place it is novel, in the third it is cool, and in the fourth it is a wholesome reminder, what i suppose you would call a memento mori.”
her voice had changed so with the unexpected conclusion that i looked up at her sharply. the roguery [pg 81]was now only flickering about her face, which was almost sad.
“memento mori! why, what have you to do with that?”
“no more, perhaps, than the rest of the world. i might not have thought of it but for this.” she tapped the sarcophagus. “but life is uncertain enough for us all, and—perhaps it was a fancy as i lay there to imagine myself in the place of him or her who occupied it hundreds, or, as my father will tell me, thousands of years ago; and then to think of a day that is coming.”
i had never before heard a girl talk like that, and no doubt my face showed it.
“well,” she continued, changing her tone, “that’s enough of the doleful for one day. now tell me; are you staying here? at the inn? no?”
“no. with friends. are you?”
“we, my father and i, are staying at eisenhalm, about four miles off. we came over here to hammer at the landslip.”
“oh!” i confess i was fairly puzzled by this girl, and could not make up my mind whether to be suspicious of her or not. i thought i would wait and see what the father was like.
“your father is scientific; a geologist?”
“rather. i have been brought up on fossils and pliocene fragments. you can hardly wonder at my taking naturally to this stone coffin as a summer-house,” she said wistfully. “science is very interesting and absorbing to a man who takes to it, but it is a horrible bore for his family. i am very, very dull, and my feelings towards this landslip are not fit to be expressed. of course you have heard of my father, professor seemarsh?”
i recognized the name as one i had often seen in the papers.
[pg 82]
“yes; i know your father well by repute. he lectures at the royal institution, does he not?”
“yes; you have heard him?”
“i am ashamed to say no.”
“don’t be ashamed. you may be a very creditable member of society and yet take no interest in old bones and old stones. father is an authority on the flint age. a boy once broke his study window with a stone, and he was delighted. it was a paleolithic remainder. nothing modern interests him in the very least. a knife and fork of to-day are to him an impertinence. don’t you pity me?”
“is the daughter of so celebrated a man to be pitied?”
“ah, i suppose that’s what every one thinks. and i do so want to move on from this stupid place, and there’s no chance of it, because father has lighted on an interesting cleavage and suspects flint remains. five o’clock! he shall not grub any longer.”
she gave me an off-hand nod, and moved away towards the landslip.
“may i come with you?” i asked. “i should like to see professor seemarsh at work.”
she made no objection, so we strolled on together, chatting on indifferent subjects. i fancy our talk was intermittent; anyhow, i know i was preoccupied with turning over in my mind the possibilities of this strange meeting. it was, in a way, natural enough; and yet something seemed to put me on my guard. that was due to the occurrences of the past fortnight and the danger we were hourly expecting to show itself. had it not been for these circumstances, i told myself, the meeting with this extraordinary girl would have been simply one of the queer episodes with which travel abounds.
we had not far to go. fifty yards or so from the entrance to the landslip i heard the tapping of a [pg 83]hammer, guided by which i looked up and saw a man on his knees busily at work, and my companion sang out, “five o’clock, my flinty-hearted parent.”
professor seemarsh turned round, gave an answering wave of the hand, proceeding to collect his specimens into a canvas satchel which he slung on his shoulder, and then clambered down from the ledge on the fissured rock.
i had told miss seemarsh my name, and she introduced us. naturally, i took keen notice of the professor. he was a learned-looking, untidy man of about fifty-five, with shaggy grey eyebrows and whitish hair, while his scrubby moustache and wisps of shaggy beard showed a lofty disregard for grooming. there was nothing remarkable in his face, except that behind his tinted spectacles the eyes seemed keen and restless. his dress was quite professional in its negligent absence of taste. a light tweed norfolk jacket, a crumpled buff waistcoat, dark grey trousers, and a weather-beaten soft felt hat were all in accordance with the best traditions of science.
he bowed and shook hands jerkily, after the manner of men whose pursuits absorb them from society. he had a quick, short manner of speech as one who wishes to say what is necessary as soon as possible and then get to his work.
“you are staying here? at the inn? wretched place, isn’t it?”
i told him.
“ah, i know. house on the site of the old castle. must have been an interesting place. ruins still exist, i believe?”
“yes; very fragmentary.”
he laughed. “i am used to fragments. they tell me all i want to know; though a mere sight-seer wants something more. you are scientific?”
“i am afraid not.”
[pg 84]
he drew in his breath sharply in pitying disappointment. “uth! well, you don’t know what you miss. most fascinating this sort of thing.” he waved his hand comprehensively towards the rocks.
from behind him his daughter made a grimace at me.
to save a smile, i hoped politely he had had a good day’s work.
“very fair. but i am only on the outer crust as yet. the great fascination of my work is that one never knows when one may not come upon a unique find. these,” he took up a handful of fragments from his bag, “these are interesting, but they tell us nothing we did not know before. that,” he tapped a piece with his finger nail, “is tertiary. that’s curious, the indentation was certainly made ten thousand years ago. yes. i hope to come upon something better in a day or two.” he threw them back, and buckled the satchel. i had never heard any one talk so fast and jerkily. it seemed as though all the words of each short sentence rushed out of his mouth at once.
“well,” he said, “we must say good-day. we have a long walk before us. my daughter has probably told you she is not geological. but being all day in the fresh air has set her up wonderfully. perhaps, if you are staying on here, we may meet again, and i may be privileged to try and bring you under the spell of science. by the way, are the ruins of the old castle shown to strangers?”
it was rather an awkward question for me to answer without appearing churlish. i could hardly treat this man as a stranger.
“my host, herr von lindheim, is very ill just now,” i said, “but i am sure he would be glad for you to see them. perhaps in a few days when he is better. but there is really scarcely anything of interest to see.”
[pg 85]
the professor smiled. “anyhow, my work will be here for some time to come. if i am disappointed in this, perhaps i may remind you of your kind words. the comparatively modern antique is so fast disappearing that one likes to see it while one can. goodbye. come, gertrude.”
he shook hands and went off. the girl, who had not spoken a word for some time, came up and gave me her hand in a shy manner, which was rather contradicted by a laugh in her eyes.
“don’t let father make you a geologist,” she said archly. “there are quite enough of them in the world.”
then, without waiting for a word from me, she turned and ran after the professor, linked her arm in his, and so they went off down the winding path.
