On the twentieth of October Mastricht fell into the Spaniards’ hands, and was cruelly pillaged. The garrison of Antwerp rose and began to make common cause with the friends of the mutineers in the citadel.
Foreign merchants fled from the imperilled city. Governor Champagny saw his own person and the cause of order seriously threatened by the despots in the fortress, which dominated the town. A Netherland army, composed principally of Walloons, under the command of the incapable Marquis Havre, the reckless de Heze and other nobles appeared before the capital, to prevent the worst.
Champagny feared that the German regiments would feel insulted and scent treason, if he admitted the government troops—but the majority of the lansquenets were already in league with the insurgents, the danger hourly increased, everywhere loyalty wavered, the citizens urgently pressed the matter, and the gates were opened to the Netherlanders.
Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers in the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end. The regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal for revolt. The inhabitants felt just like a man, who keeps powder and firebrands in the cellar, or a traveller, who recognizes robbers and murderers in his own escort.
Champagny called upon the citizens to help themselves, and used their labor in throwing up a wall of defence in the open part of the city, which was most dangerously threatened by the citadel. Among the men and women who voluntarily flocked to the work by thousands, were Adam, the smith, his apprentices, and Ruth. The former, with his journeymen, wielded the spade under the direction of a skilful engineer, the girl, with other women, braided gabions from willow-rods.
She had lived through sorrowful days. Self-reproach, for having by her hasty fit of temper caused the father’s outburst of anger to his son, constantly tortured her.
She had learned to hate the Spaniards as bitterly as Adam; she knew that Ulrich was following a wicked, criminal course, yet she loved him, his image had been treasured from childhood, unassailed and unsullied, in the most sacred depths of her heart. He was all in all to her, the one person destined for her, the man to whom she belonged as the eye does to the face, the heart to the breast.
She believed in his love, and when she strove to condemn and forget him, it seemed as if she were alienating, rejecting the best part of-herself.
A thousand voices told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect. She did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become his, expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after winter. Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief of her loving soul. Then, when the inevitable had happened they would be one in their aspirations for virtue, and the son could no longer close his heart against the father, nor the father shut his against the son.
The child’s vivid imagination was still alive in the maiden. Every leisure hour she had thought of her lost playfellow, every day she had talked to his father about him, asking whether he would rather see him return as a famous artist, a skilful smith, or commander of a splendid ship.
Handsome, strong, superior to other men, he had always appeared. Now she found him following evil courses, on the path to ruin; yet even here he was peerless among his comrades; whatever stain rested upon him, he certainly was not base and mean.
As a child, she always had transformed him into a splendid fairy-prince, but she now divested him of all magnificence, seeing him attired in plain burgher dress, appear humbly before his father and stand beside him at the forge. She dreamed that she was by his side, and before her stood the table she covered with food for him, and the water she gave him after his work. She heard the house shake under the mighty blows of his hammer, and in imagination beheld him lay his curly head in her lap, and say he had found love and peace with her.
The cannonade from the citadel stopped the citizens’ work. Open hostilities had begun.
On the morning of November 4th, under the cover of a thick fog, the treacherous Spaniards, commanded by Romero, Vargas and Valdez entered the fortress. The citizens, among them Adam, learned this fact with rage and terror, but the mutineers of Aalst had not yet collie.
“He is keeping them back,” Ruth had said the day before. “Antwerp, our home, is sacred to him!”
The cannon roared, culverins crashed, muskets and arquebuses rattled; the boding notes of the alarm-bells and the fierce shouts of soldiers and citizens hurrying to battle mingled with the deafening thunder of the artillery.
Every hand seized a weapon, every shop was closed; hearts stood still with fear, or throbbed wildly with rage and emotion. Ruth remained calm. She detained the smith in the house, repeating her former words: “The men from Aalst are not coming; he is keeping diem back.” Just at that moment the young apprentice, whose parents lived on the Scheldt, rushed with dishevelled hair into the workshop, gasping:
“The men from Aalst are here. They crossed in peatboats and a galley. They wear green twigs in their helmets, and the Eletto is marching in the van, bearing the standard. I saw them; terrible—horrible—sheathed in iron from top to toe.”
He said no more, for Adam, with a savage imprecation, interrupted him, seized his huge hammer, and rushed out of the house.
Ruth staggered back into the workshop.
Adam hurried straight to the rampart. Here stood six thousand Walloons, to defend the half-finished wall, and behind them large bodies of armed citizens.
“The men from Aalst have come!” echoed from lip to lip.
Curses, wails of grief, yells of savage fury, blended with the thunder of the artillery and the ringing of the alarm bells.
A fugitive now dashed from the counterscarp towards the Walloons, shouting:
“They are here, they are here! The blood-hound, Navarrete, is leading them. They will neither eat nor drink, they say, till they dine in Paradise or Antwerp. Hark, hark! there they are!”
And they were there, coming nearer and nearer; foremost of all marched the Eletto, holding the standard in his upraised hand.
Behind him, from a thousand bearded lips, echoed furious, greedy, terrible cries; “Santiago, Espana, a sangre, a carne, a fuego, a saco!”—[St. Jago; Spain, blood, murder, fire, pillage]—but Navarrete was silent, striding onward, erect and haughty, as if he were proof against the bullets, that whistled around him on all sides. Consciousness of power and the fierce joy of battle sparkled in his eyes. Woe betide him, who received a blow from the two-handed sword the Eletto still held over his shoulder, now with his left hand.
Adam stood with upraised hammer beside the front ranks of the Walloons! his eyes rested as if spellbound on his approaching son and the standard in his hand. The face of the guilty woman, who had defrauded him of the happiness of his life, gazed at him from the banner. He knew not whether he was awake, or the sport of some bewildering dream.
Now, now his glance met the Eletto’s, and unable to restrain himself longer, he raised his hammer and tried to rush forward, but the Walloons forced him back.
Yes, yes, he hated his own child, and trembling with rage, burning to rush upon him, he saw the Eletto spring on the lowest projection of the wall, to climb up. For a short time he was concealed from his eyes, then he saw the top of the standard, then the banner itself, and now his son stood on the highest part of the rampart, shouting: “Espana, Espana!”
At this moment, with a deafening din, a hundred arquebuses were discharged close beside the smith, a dense cloud of smoke darkened the air, and when the wind dispersed it, Adam no longer beheld the standard. It lay on the ground; beside it the Eletto, with his face turned upward, mute and motionless.
The father groaned aloud and closed his eyes; when he opened them, hundreds of iron-mailed mutineers had scaled the rampart. Beneath their feet lay his bleeding child.
Corpse after corpse sank on the stone wall beside the fallen man, but the iron wedge of the Spaniards pressed farther and farther forward.
“Espana, a sangre, a carne!”
Now they had reached the Walloons, steel clashed against steel, but only for a moment, then the defenders of the city wavered, the furious wedge entered their ranks, they parted, yielded, and with loud shrieks took to flight. The Spanish swords raged among them, and overpowered by the general terror, the officers followed the example of the soldiers, the flying army, like a resistless torrent, carrying everything with it, even the smith.
An unparalleled massacre began. Adam seeing a frantic horde rush into the houses, remembered Ruth, and half mad with terror hastened back to the smithy, where he told those left behind what he had witnessed. Then, arming himself and his journeymen with weapons forged by his own hand, he hurried out with them to renew the fight.
Hours elapsed; the noise, the firing, the ringing of the alarm bells still continued; smoke and the smell of fire penetrated through the doors and windows.
Evening came, and the richest, most flourishing commercial capital in the world was here a heap of ashes, there a ruin, everywhere a plundered treasury.
Once the occupants of the smith’s shop heard a band of murderers raging and shouting outside of the smithy; but they passed by, and all day long no others entered the quiet street, which was inhabited only by workers in metal.
Ruth and old Rahel had remained behind, under the protection of the brave foreman. Adam had told them to fly to the cellar, if any uproar arose outside the door. Ruth wore a dagger, determined in the worst extremity to turn it against her own breast. What did she care for life, since Ulrich had perished!
Old Rahel, an aged dame of eighty, paced restlessly, with bowed figure, through the large room, saying compassionately, whenever her eyes met the girl’s: “Ulrich, our Ulrich!” then, straightening herself and looking upward. She no longer knew what had happened a few hours before, yet her memory faithfully retained the incidents that occurred many years previous. The maidservant, a native of Antwerp, had rushed home to her parents when the tumult began.
As the day drew towards a close, the panes were less frequently shaken by the thunder of the artillery, the noise in the streets diminished, but the house became more and more filled with suffocating smoke.
Night came, the lamp was lighted, the women started at every new sound, but anxiety for Adam now overpowered every other feeling in Ruth’s mind. Just then the door opened, and the smith’s deep voice called in the vestibule: “It is I! Don’t be frightened, it is I!”
He had gone out with five journeymen: he returned with two. The others lay slain in the streets, and with them Count Oberstein’s soldiers, the only ones who had stoutly resisted the Spanish mutineers and their allies to the last man.
Adam had swung his hammer on the Mere and by the Zucker Canal among the citizens, who fought desperately for the property and lives of their families;—but all was vain. Vargas’s troopers had stifled even the last breath of resistance.
The streets ran blood, corpses lay in heaps before the doors and on the pavement—among them the bodies of the Margrave of Antwerp, Verreyck, Burgomaster van der Mere, and many senators and nobles. Conflagration after conflagration crimsoned the heavens, the superb city-hall was blazing, and from a thousand windows echoed the screams of the assailed, plundered, bleeding citizens, women and children.
The smith hastily ate a few mouthfuls to restore his strength, then raised his head, saying: “No one has touched our house. The door and shutters of neighbor Ykens’ are shattered.”
“A miracle!” cried old Rahel, raising her staff. “The generation of vipers scent richer booty than iron at the silversmith’s.”
Just at that moment the knocker sounded. Adam started up, put on his coat of mail again, motioned to his journeymen and went to the door.
Rahel shrieked loudly: “To the cellar, Ruth. Oh, God, oh, God, have mercy upon us! Quick—where’s my shawl?—They are attacking us!—Come, come! Oh, I am caught, I can go no farther!”
Mortal terror had seized the old woman; she did not want to die. To the girl death was welcome, and she did not stir.
Voices were now audible in the vestibule, but they sounded neither noisy nor threatening; yet Rahel shrieked in despair as a lansquenet, fully armed, entered the workshop with the armorer.
Hans Eitelfritz had come to look for Ulrich’s father. In his arms lay the dog Lelaps, which, bleeding from the wound made by a bullet, that grazed its neck, nestled trembling against its master.
Bowing courteously to Ruth, the soldier said:
“Take pity on this poor creature, fair maiden, and wash its wound with a little wine. It deserves it. I could tell you such tales of its cleverness! It came from distant India, where a pirate.... But you shall hear the story some other time. Thanks, thanks! As to your son, Meister, it’s a thousand pities about him. He was a splendid fellow, and we were like two brothers. He himself gave me the safeguard for you and the artist, Moor. I fastened them on the doors with my own hands, as soon as the fray began. My swordbearer got the paste, and now may the writing stick there as an honorable memento till the end of the world. Navarrete was a faithful fellow, who never forgot his friends! How much good that does Lelaps! See, see! He is licking your hands, that means, ‘I thank you.’”
While Ruth had been washing the dog’s wound, and the lansquenet talked of Ulrich, her tearful eyes met the father’s.
“They say he cut down twenty-one Walloons before he fell,” continued Hans.
“No, sir,” interrupted Adam. “I saw him. He was shot before he raised his guilty sword.”
“Ah, ah!—but it happened on the rampart.”
“They rushed over him to the assault.”
“And there he still lies; not a soul has cared for the dead and wounded.”
The girl started, and laid the dog in the old man’s lap, exclaiming: “Suppose Ulrich should be alive! Perhaps he was not mortally wounded, perhaps....”
“Yes, everything is possible,” interrupted the lansquenet. “I could tell you things... for instance, there was a countryman of mine whom, when we were in Africa, a Moorish Pacha struck... no lies now... perhaps! In earnest; it might happen that Ulrich... wait... at midnight I shall keep guard on the rampart with my company, then I’ll look....”
“We, we will seek him!” cried Ruth, seizing the smith’s arm.
“I will,” replied the smith; “you must stay here.”
“No, father, I will go with you.”
The lansquenet also shook his head, saying “Jungfer, Jungfer, you don’t know what a day this is. Thank Our Heavenly Father that you have hitherto escaped so well. The fierce lion has tasted blood. You are a pretty child, and if they should see you to-day....”
“No matter,” interrupted the girl. “I know what I am asking. You will take me with you, father! Do so, if you love me! I will find him, if any one can!
“Oh, sir, sir, you look kind and friendly! You have the guard. Escort us; let me seek Ulrich. I shall find him, I know; I must seek him—I must.”
The girl’s cheeks were glowing; for before her she saw her playfellow, her lover, gasping for breath, with staring eyes, her name upon his dying lips.
Adam sadly shook his head, but Hans Eitelfritz was touched by the girl’s eager longing to help the man who was dear to him, so he hastily taxed his inventive brain, saying:
“Perhaps it might be risked... listen to me, Meister! You won’t be particularly safe in the streets, yourself, and could hardly reach the rampart without me. I shall lose precious time; but you are his father, and this girl—is she his sister?—No?—So much the better for him, if he lives! It isn’t an easy matter, but it can be done. Yonder good dame will take care of Lelaps for me. Poor dog! That feels good, doesn’t it? Well then... I can be here again at midnight. Have you a handcart in the house?”
“For coal and iron.”
“That will answer. Let the woman make a kettle of soup, and if you have a few hams....”
“There are four in the store-room,” cried Ruth.
“Take some bread, a few jugs of wine, and a keg of beer, too, and then follow me quietly. I have the password, my servant will accompany me, and I’ll make the Spaniards believe you belong to us, and are bringing my men their supper. Blacken your pretty face a little, my dear girl, wrap yourself up well, and if we find Ulrich we will put him in the empty cart, and I will accompany you home again. Take yonder spicesack, and if we find the poor fellow, dead or alive, hide him with it. The sack was intended for other things, but I shall be well content with this booty. Take care of these silver toys. What pretty things they are! How the little horse rears, and see the bird in the cage! Don’t look so fierce, Meister! In catching fish we must be content even with smelts; if I hadn’t taken these, others would have done so; they are for my sister’s children, and there is something else hidden here in my doublet; it shall help me to pass my leisure hours. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
When Hans Eitelfritz returned at midnight, the cart with the food and liquor was ready. Adam’s warnings were unavailing. Ruth resolutely insisted upon accompanying him, and he well knew what urged her to risk safety and life as freely as he did himself.
Old Rahel had done her best to conceal Ruth’s beauty.
The dangerous nocturnal pilgrimage began.
The smith pulled the cart, and Ruth pushed, Hans Eitelfritz, with his sword-bearer, walking by her side. From time to time Spanish soldiers met and accosted them; but Hans skilfully satisfied their curiosity and dispelled their suspicions.
Pillage and murder had not yet ceased, and Ruth saw, heard, and mistrusted scenes of horror, that congealed her blood. But she bore up until they reached the rampart.
Here Eitelfritz was among his own men.
He delivered the meat and drink to them, told them to take it out of the cart, and invited them to fall to boldly. Then, seizing a lantern, he guided Ruth and the smith, who drew the light cart after them, through the intense darkness of the November night to the rampart.
Hans Eitelfritz lighted the way, and all three searched. Corpse lay beside corpse. Wherever Ruth set her foot, it touched some fallen soldier. Dread, horror and loathing threatened to deprive her of consciousness; but the ardent longing, the one last hope of her soul sustained her, steeled her energy, sharpened her sight.
They had reached the centre of the rampart, when she saw in the distance a tall figure stretched at full length.
That, yes, that was he!
Snatching the lantern from the lansquenet’s hand, she rushed to the prostrate form, threw herself on her knees beside it, and cast the light upon the face.
What had she seen?
Why did the shriek she uttered sound so agonized? The men were approaching, but Ruth knew that there was something else to be done, besides weeping and wailing.
She pressed her ear close to the mailed breast to listen, and when she heard no breath, hurriedly unfastened the clasps and buckles that confined the armor.
The cuirass fell rattling on the ground, and now—no, there was no deception, the wounded man’s chest rose under her ear, she heard the faint throbbing of his heart, the feeble flutter of a gasping breach.
Bursting into loud, convulsive weeping, she raised his head and pressed it to her bosom.
“He is dead; I thought so!” said the lansquenet, and Adam sank on his knees before his wounded son. But Ruth’s sobs now changed to low, joyous, musical laughter, which echoed in her voice as she exclaimed: “Ulrich breathes, he lives! Oh, God! oh, God! how we thank Thee!”
Then—was she deceived, could it be? She heard the inflexible man beside her sob, saw him bend over Ulrich, listen to the beating of his heart, and press his bearded lips first to his temples, then on the hand he had so harshly rejected.
Hans Eitelfritz warned them to hasten, carried the senseless man, with Adam’s assistance, to the cart, and half an hour later the dangerously wounded, outcast son was lying in the most comfortable bed in the best room in his father’s house. His couch was in the upper story; down in the kitchen old Rahel was moving about the hearth, preparing her “good salve” herself. While thus engaged she often chuckled aloud, murmuring “Ulrich,” and while mixing and stirring the mixture could not keep her old feet still; it almost seemed as if she wanted to dance.
Hans Eitelfritz promised Adam to tell no one what had become of his son, and then returned to his men. The next morning the mutineers from Aalst sought their fallen leader; but he had disappeared, and the legend now became wide-spread among them, that the Prince of Evil had carried Navarrete to his own abode. The dog Lelaps died of his wound, and scarcely a week after the pillage of flourishing Antwerp by the “Spanish Furies,” Hans Eitelfritz’s regiment was ordered to Ghent. He came with drooping head to the smithy, to take his leave. He had sold his costly booty, and, like so many other pillagers, gambled away the stolen property at the exchange. Nothing was left him of the great day in Antwerp, except the silver toys for his sister’s children in Colln on the Spree.
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