CHAPTER XXXVI

AFTER many turnings and windings through the inextricable mazes of the forest, which extended over a rough and hilly tract of country, Consuelo found herself on an elevation covered over with a confused heap of rocks and ruins, very difficult to be distinguished from each other, so destructive had been the hand of man, jealous of that of time. It now presented nothing but the appearance of a mountain of ruins, but had been formerly the site of a village, burned by order of the redoubtable blind man, the celebrated Calixtin chief John Ziska, from whom Albert believed himself to have descended, and perhaps was so in reality.

This ferocious and indefatigable captain having commanded his troops, one dark and dismal night, to attack the Fortress of the Giants, then guarded for the emperor by the Saxons, overheard his soldiers murmur, and one among them not far from him, say—"This cursed blind man supposes that all can do without light as well as he." Thereupon Ziska, turning to one of the four devoted disciples who accompanied him everywhere, guiding his horse and chariot and giving him a precise account of the position and movements of the enemy, said to him, with that extraordinary accuracy of memory, or principle of second sight, which in him supplied the place of vision: "There is a village near this, is there not?" "Yes, father," replied the Taborite guide, "to your right, upon a hill in front of the fortress." Ziska then summoned the discontented soldier whose murmurs had reached his ear: "My child," said he to him, "you complain of the darkness; go immediately and set fire to the village upon the hill to my right, and by the light of the flames we can march and fight." This terrible order was executed. The burning village lighted the march and attack of the Taborites. The Castle of the Giants was carried in two hours, and Ziska took possession of it.

At dawn the next day it was observed and made known to him, that in the midst of the ruins of the village, and at the very summit of the hill which had served the soldiers as a platform for observing the movements of the enemy, a young oak, rare in those countries and already vigorous, had remained standing and unscathed, apparently preserved from the heat of the flames around it by the water of a cistern which bathed its roots. "I know the cistern well," replied Ziska. "Ten of our number were cast into it by the accursed inhabitants of that village, and since that time the stone which covers it has not been removed. Let it remain and serve as their monument, since we are not among those who believe that wandering souls are driven from the gates of heaven by the Roman patron (Peter, the key-bearer, whom they have made a saint), because their bodies rot in ground unconsecrated by the hands of the priests of Belial. Let the bones of our brothers rest in peace in that cistern. Their souls are living. They have already assumed other bodies, and those martyrs fight among us although we know them not. As to the inhabitants of the village, they have received their reward, and as to the oak, it has done well in defying the conflagration; a more glorious destiny than that of sheltering miscreants was reserved for it. We needed a gallows, and there it stands. Go and bring me those twenty Augustine monks whom we took yesterday in their convent, and who make a difficulty about following us. We will hang them high and dry on the branches of that brave oak, whose health such an ornament will quite restore."

It was done as soon as said. The oak from that time was called the Hussite, the stone of the cistern, the Stone of Terror, and the ruined village on the deserted hill, Schreckenstein.

Consuelo had heard this frightful chronicle related in all its details by the Baroness Amelia. But as she had as yet seen the theater of it only from a distance, or by night at the time of her arrival at the château, she would not have recognised it, if, on casting her eyes below, she had not seen at the bottom of the ravine which the road crossed, the large fragments of the oak rent by the lightning, which no inhabitant of the country, and no servant of the château, had dared to cut or carry away; a superstitious fear being still attached in their minds, although after the lapse of several centuries, to this monument of horror, this contemporary of John Ziska; while the visions and predictions of Albert had invested this tragical spot with a still more repulsive character.

Thus Consuelo, on finding herself alone and unexpectedly before the Stone of Terror, upon which, overcome with fatigue, she had even seated herself, felt her courage shaken and her heart strangely oppressed. According, not only to Albert, but all the mountaineers of the country, terrible apparitions haunted the Schreckenstein, and drove from it all hunters rash enough to frequent its neighborhood in search of game. Consequently this hill, though very near the château, was often the abode of wolves and wild animals, who found there a secure refuge against the pursuits of the baron and his hounds.

The imperturbable Frederick did not on his own account much fear being assailed by the devil, with whom moreover he would not have feared to measure himself hand to hand; but superstitious in his own way, and in cases where his favorite occupations were concerned, he was persuaded that a pernicious influence there threatened his dogs, and attacked them with unknown and incurable disorders. He had lost several of them, from having suffered them to slake their thirst in the rills of water which escaped from the veins of the hill, and which perhaps sprang from the condemned cistern, the ancient tomb of the Hussites. So he recalled, with all the authority of his whistle, his greyhound Panther, or his slow-hound Sapphire, whenever they wandered in the neighborhood of the Schreckenstein.

Consuelo, blushing at this feeling of cowardice which she had resolved to combat, determined to rest a moment on the fatal stone, and to retire from it only at the slow and steady pace which marks a tranquil mind in the midst of trial. But just as she turned her eyes from the blighted oak which she saw two hundred feet below her, to cast them upon surrounding objects, she saw that she was not alone upon the Stone of Terror, and that a mysterious figure had seated itself at her side, without announcing its approach by the slightest noise. The figure had a large, round, and staring face, fixed on a deformed body, thin and crooked as a grasshopper's, and was dressed in an indescribable costume belonging to no age or country, the ragged condition of which amounted almost to slovenliness. Nothing in this being, save the strangeness and suddenness of its appearance, was calculated to inspire terror, for its looks and gestures were friendly. A kind and gentle smile played around the large mouth, and an infantile expression softened the wandering of mind which was betrayed by its vague look and hurried gestures. Consuelo, on finding herself alone with a madman, in a place where no one could come to her assistance, certainly felt alarmed, notwithstanding numerous bows and kind smiles which the insane being addressed to her. She thought it prudent to return his salutations and motions of the head in order to avoid irritating him, but she rose as quickly as possible, and left the place, pale and trembling.

The maniac did not follow her, and made no movement to recall her; he merely climbed upon the Stone of Terror to look after her, and saluted her by waving his cap with various fantastic gestures, all the while uttering a Bohemian word which Consuelo did not understand. When she found herself at a considerable distance, she recovered sufficient courage to look at and listen to him. She already reproached herself for having felt terrified in the presence of one of those unfortunates, whom a moment before she had pitied in her heart, and vindicated from the contempt and desertion of mankind. "He is a gentle maniac," said she to herself, "perhaps made crazy by love. He has found no refuge from coldness and contempt but on this accursed rock, on which no other person would dare to dwell, and where demons and specters are kinder to him than his fellow-men, since they do not drive him away nor trouble him in the indulgence of his moody temper. Poor creature! who laughest and playest like a child, with gray beard and a round and shapeless back! God doubtless protects and blesses thee in thy misfortune, since He sends thee only pleasing thoughts, and has not made thee misanthropical and violent, as thou hadst a right to be!" The maniac, seeing that she walked more slowly, and seeming to understand her kind look, began to speak to her in Bohemian with great volubility; and his voice had an exceeding sweetness, a touching charm which contrasted forcibly with his ugliness. Consuelo, not understanding him, and supposing that he wanted alms, drew from her pocket a piece of money which she placed upon a large stone, after raising her arm to show it to him, and to point to him the spot where she placed it. But he only laughed louder than ever, rubbing his hands and exclaiming in bad German: "Useless, useless! Zdenko needs nothing, Zdenko is happy, very happy! Zdenko has consolation, consolation, consolation!" Then, as if he had remembered a word which he had sought for a long time in vain, he shouted with a burst of joy, and so as to be understood, though he pronounced very badly, "Consuelo, Consuelo, Consuelo, de mi alma."

Consuelo stopped, astounded, and addressing him in Spanish: "Why do you call me thus?" said she, "who has taught you that name? Do you understand the language which I speak to you?" At all these questions, to which Consuelo waited in vain for an answer, the maniac did nothing but jump and rub his hands, like a man enchanted with himself; and as long as she could distinguish the sound of his voice, she heard him repeat her name in different tones, accompanied with laughter and exclamations of joy, like a speaking bird, when he tries to articulate a word which he has been taught, and which he interrupts with the warbling of his natural song.

On returning to the château, Consuelo was lost in thought "Who, then," said she to herself, "has betrayed the secret of my disguise, so that the first savage I meet in these solitudes calls me by my own name? Can this crazy being have seen me anywhere? Such people travel; perhaps he has been in Venice at the same time as myself." She tried in vain to recall the faces of all the beggars and vagabonds she had been accustomed to see on the quays and on the Place of St. Mark, but that of the maniac of the Stone of Terror did not present itself to her memory. But as she once more crossed the drawbridge, a more logical and interesting association of ideas occurred to her mind. She resolved to clear up her suspicions, and secretly congratulated herself on not having altogether failed in her purpose in the expedition she had just concluded.