CHAPTER XXXI.
A HEADACHE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
The governor plenipotentiary was suffering with a splitting headache,which at times made him inclined to believe that all the bullets hehad sent through his victims' heads were holding a rendezvous in hisown. On such occasions it was dangerous to approach the great man. Inthe frenzy of his pain he was wont to rage even against those he lovedbest, and to find fault with all who were under his authority, as ifdetermined to make others feel some small fraction of the discomforthe was forced to endure. To ask a favour of him in such moments, oreven to demand simple justice, was worse than useless. Did he findfavour with his torturer, he wanted to know, or was there any justicein his undeserved suffering?
This was the sort of man that was set as judge over a vanquishedpeople.
In the midst of one of these attacks the governor sat alone oneevening in his room when his servant opened the door. "Some one hereto speak with your Excellency," he announced.
"Send him away."
"But it is a lady."
"The devil take all these hysterical women! I don't want any woebegonefaces around me now. I can't see the lady."
Many women, most of them in mourning, crossed his threshold in thosedays.
"It is the Baroness Alfonsine Plankenhorst who asks to see you," theservant ventured to add.
"Can't she stay at home, I'd like to know? Is this time of night myhour for receiving callers?"
"She says she must see your Excellency--it is important."
"A young person of strong character. Well, show her in. Besides," headded to himself, "she isn't a woman; she is a devil." Then resuminghis chair, and without removing the bandage that adorned his head, heawaited his caller.
Alfonsine entered in travelling costume, and closed the door carefullybehind her.
"My dear Baroness," began the governor, "I must beg you to be as briefas possible, for I have a fearful headache."
"I will do my errand in a very few words," was the reply. "I learnedto-day of your removal from the governorship of Hungary."
"Ha! Is that so? And why am I removed?" The sufferer felt as if acannon-ball had crashed through his head.
"Because there is an outcry against the present severe measures, andthe public is to be told that the government is not responsible forthem, but you personally in your excess of zeal."
The sick man pressed both hands to his temples, as if to keep his headfrom bursting.
"Beginning to-morrow, a new system is to be inaugurated," resumedAlfonsine, "and imprisonment is to take the place of the deathpenalty."
"Ah, I am very grateful to you for this information--very grateful."
"I made all haste to bring you warning, for to-morrow morning you willreceive official notification of your retirement. But you still have anight before you for action."
"And I will use it, I assure you!" exclaimed the governor.
He rang his bell and summoned his adjutant. The latter soon appeared.
"Go at once to the judge-advocate and tell him to have all pendingsuits drawn up and ready to submit to the court at midnight, when itwill hold an extra session. At three o'clock all the verdicts must bein my hands; at five let the accused stand ready to hear theirsentences. The garrison meanwhile is to be kept under arms. Now go;despatch is the word!"
The governor turned again to his visitor. "Are you satisfied with mypromptness?" he asked.
Alfonsine answered with another question. "Is Richard Baradlay one ofthose whose cases will come up to-night?"
"His name is among the first on the list," was the reply.
"Do not forget, your Excellency," urged the other, "that he has doneus more harm than any one else."
"I know all about him, Baroness, and his case shall receive ourimmediate attention. And now I thank you for bringing me this word sopromptly; I thank you heartily."
"Good night."
"Ha! ha! and a royal good night it will be for me!" exclaimed thegovernor when his guest had gone.
All that night Alfonsine Plankenhorst never closed her eyes. Fiendishjoy and nervous excitement frightened sleep from her pillow. She wasimpatient for morning to come, that she might take the first train forVienna and revel in her poor cousin's grief and despair. She countedthe hours as they dragged slowly by. Twelve o'clock. The court was nowin session; the accused were hearing the charges read out againstthem; they were being asked if they had any defence to offer; they hadnone. Then they were led back to their cells. One o'clock. Theverdicts were being considered; no one said a word in the prisoners'favour; the vote was taken. Two o'clock. The verdicts were beingrecorded. Three o'clock. The man with the bandaged head was signingeach sentence. Four o'clock. All was in readiness. Whoever had sleptin that prison was now, at any rate, on his feet and was being told tofeast his eyes for the last time on this beautiful world, on the rosyflush of dawning day, and on the dying of the twinkling stars in theeastern sky.
Unable to lie longer in bed, Alfonsine rose and went down-stairs. Acab stood in the courtyard. She ordered the porter to bring down herhand-bag, and then drove to the judge-advocate's house. She knew himwell,--as the sexton knows the undertaker,--and she felt sure offinding him at home and awake. She was shown into his presence withoutdelay. The judge-advocate was a man of few words.
"Have you finished your night's work?" asked Alfonsine.
"Yes."
"What were the sentences?"
"Death."
"In every case?"
"Without exception."
"And Richard Baradlay?"
"Is on the list."
"He is condemned?"
"To death."
Alfonsine pressed the judge-advocate's hand and hastened away to hertrain. The city clocks were striking five,--the last hour they wouldever strike for Richard Baradlay, said she, as she hurried on, feedingher imagination with the last grim scenes of his earthly career.
On arriving at Vienna she found the family carriage awaiting her, andshe lost no time in reaching her home. Hastening from room to room inquest of Edith, she found her sewing on a black dress for herself.
"I have fulfilled my vow," cried Alfonsine, smiling with gratifiedmalice. "He is dead!"
Edith raised her eyes sadly and met her cousin's gaze. Then she bowedher head on her breast, but she did not weep or cry out.
Hearing her daughter enter, Baroness Plankenhorst hastened to join herand hear all about the success of her mission. Nor did the other omitany detail in recounting her experiences of the night and the earlymorning. She dwelt with pride on the instant and entire success thathad crowned her efforts. Thereupon the mother and daughter embracedand kissed each other in their joy, nearly forgetting in theircongratulations the presence of a third person. But was the victimdetermined not to wince?
"Haven't you a single tear to shed for him?" they asked, scornfully.But perhaps she had not yet grasped the meaning of it all. "Don't youhear me?" screamed her cousin; "your Richard Baradlay is dead."
The other only sighed. "God has taken him," said she to herself, "andI shall mourn him as long as I live." But she could not trust herselfto say anything aloud. Her anguish was too keen.
"Weep for him, I tell you!" cried the beautiful fury, stamping herfoot, while loose locks of her fair hair fluttered about her face.
At that moment the servant opened the door and announced, "CaptainRichard Baradlay." There he stood, but no longer in the uniform of acaptain of hussars. He wore plain citizen's clothes.
The tormented victim of the headache had employed the last hours ofhis tenure of office in causing one hundred and twenty of the chiefprisoners under his care to be tried and sentenced with the utmostexpedition. They were condemned to death, but he exercised his rightof pardon, and set them all free, without exception. He thus, as hehad vowed in his hour of torment, took ample revenge--not on theaccused, but on the minister who was about to remove him from office.He issued a wholesale pardon. "Now let the minister, in his zeal formilder methods, o
utdo me if he can!" he exclaimed, as he threw downhis pen.
Richard had been summoned before the judge-advocate immediately afterreceiving the unexpected announcement of his pardon.
"You are set free, it is true," said the high official; "yet for atime you are not allowed to live in Hungary, but are ordered to makeyour home in some city of the empire outside your own country. Let ussay Vienna, for example. The governor, who has to-day given you yourliberty, wishes you to call on the young Baroness AlfonsinePlankenhorst, upon your arrival at Vienna, and thank her for her goodoffices in securing your liberation. Without her intervention youwould not so soon have left your prison cell. So give her yourheartiest thanks."
"I shall not fail to do so," was the reply.
"And one thing more: your brother Eugen, or A-dA?n, as you call him, haspaid the penalty of his treason with his life--"
"Yes, I know it," interrupted the other; "but I am puzzled how theGerman and the Hungarian names--"
Here he was sharply cut short. "In the first place," said thejudge-advocate, sternly, "it was against all rules and regulationsfor you to hear anything about it, since you were a prisoner, andcommunication with a prisoner is treason. In the second place, I didnot ask you for a lecture on philology; you are here to attend to whatI have to say." Therewith he took a little pasteboard box out of adrawer. "Your brother left you a lock of his hair, which I now deliverto you."
Richard opened the box. "But this is not--" he began, in greatsurprise, when the other again shut him off.
"I have nothing more to say to you. Good morning."
With this, the released prisoner was shown to the door. A little more,and he would have blurted out his astonishment at finding blond hairin the little box, whereas A-dA?n's hair was dark.
Hastening to the railway station, Richard caught the early train toVienna, and so made the journey all but in Alfonsine's company. She,however, took her seat in a first-class compartment, while he, as apoor released prisoner, contented himself with a third-class seat. Andwhile the young lady was revelling in her supposed revenge, only a fewyards away sat the object of her hatred, puzzling his brain over threebaffling riddles. The first was: "What is the meaning of the blondlock of hair, and why _Eugen_ Baradlay instead of _Edmund_?" Thesecond: "How is it that I am indebted to Alfonsine Plankenhorst formy freedom?" And the third: "Where shall I find Edith, and when I findher what is to be my next step?"
He could solve neither of the three riddles.