Tales from the German Volume II Part 19

'Will Aliande be less inconsolable as a widow than divorced?'

'Waste not your breath!'

'By the eternal G.o.ds! I warn you for the last time. These prison walls see you Rosamunda's husband, or echo the death-sigh forced from you by the rack!'

Ryno tore one of the golden locks from his head and handed it to his persecutor. 'If one spark of humanity yet slumbers in your bosom you will send this lock to my poor wife, with the message--That I die faithful to her, and that I wish her to train up my son as a good and virtuous knight.--Now let your executioners come on, I am ready.'

'Then, by Woden!' roared the foaming parent, 'you never behold the rising of another sun!'

He struck a bell, and twelve armed men with closed visors and drawn swords, slowly and silently entered. One of them detached Ryno's chains from the wall. Again the bell sounded, and at the other end of the prison the heavy doors of the torture vault flew open with a horrible clang. The cave-like room was hung with black and lighted with torches.

Every instrument which the cruelty of man has invented for the torment of his fellow man, brightly polished and arranged with frightful regularity, met the glance of the unfortunate prisoner. Large pincers were glowing in a chafing dish, and in the centre of the room stood the dreadful rack with its fearful and mysterious equipments. Three hideous ruffians, with naked arms, in blood-red caps and doublets, stood waiting beside it. On the right was an open and empty coffin.

'For the last time, choose!' cried the incensed tyrant.

'Death!' said Ryno, calmly, and sighing the name of Aliande, he advanced toward the rack with a firm step. A beam of light suddenly illuminated the dungeon. The torture-chamber, the guards, the rack, the executioners, had all vanished,--and Ryno found himself again in a magnificent room whose azure star-besprinkled dome was supported by rose-crowned pillars. With a friendly smile the sorceress Hiorba approached him; and, as on the first day of his marriage, with the glow of newly awakened love, sank the happy Aliande upon his breast, thanking him for his unshaken fidelity to his early vows.

'You have sustained the trial!' said Hiorba, 'and thereby expiated many a former folly, which Aliande must now forget. Love has returned, confidence is born anew, and I shall leave the again united pair with unshaken hope. The unhappy Daura will accompany me. Possibly she may learn forgetfulness in my quiet and peaceful retreat, which she ought never to hare left. Farewell, my children. Forget not the true watchwords of hymen--LOVE AND FIDELITY! Ryno, remain the same Ryno you were in the grotto and in Arno's dungeon. Aliande, never forget that, not tears and reproaches, but kindness and affection only, can reclaim an erring husband.'

She disappeared in a cloud of incense, and the reunited lovers sealed their mutual promise to obey her sage instructions, with a kiss.

Faithfully was that promise kept. Even when Aliande's head had become silvered with age she alone was the happiness of Ryno, as he was hers; and it was many years before the venerable matron, surrounded by her grandchildren, was surprised by her friend Hiorba, who came in a robe of light to kiss her expiring breath from her pale lips.

THE ANABAPTIST.

A TALE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY C. F. VAN DER VELDE.

CHAPTER I.

It was on a fine morning in February of the year 1534, that the journeyman armorer, Alf Kippenbrock, proceeded from Coesfeld toward the free imperial city of Munster. Already had he left Baumberg and Stestendorp behind--Saint Lambert's tower stretched high its gigantic head at the edge of the distant horizon,--and the fruitful plain, in which venerable old Munster is situated, gradually spread itself out before the wanderer with its other towers and churches peeping from the broad level,--while the bright silver of the distant and beautiful river Aa glistened in the rays of the morning sun.

Alf stopped at a stone cross which stood by the road side,--and while a deeper red suffused his blooming cheeks, and his pious eyes sparkled with enthusiasm at the sight of the ancient episcopal seat, he took off his hat and swung it toward the city for joy.

'G.o.d bless thee, dear native city!' he rapturously exclaimed; 'it is long since we parted--and I now look in vain for my good old parents, who, seven years ago, accompanied me as far as this cross. Nevertheless thou appearest kind and friendly, and ready to offer me a hearty welcome. Ah, nothing is dearer to man than his native home; thank G.o.d I have again found mine, and in it that true and genuine faith in which I hope to live, and, one day, happily die.'

He then replaced his hat and walked briskly in the direction of St.

Lambert's tower. At that moment the morning breeze brought suddenly the sound of the many voiced bells to the youth's ear, while an immense cloud of vapor rolled up in the well known region of St. Mauritius's cloisters. 'Holy G.o.d! some terrible misfortune has happened!' exclaimed Alf, redoubling his pace. At the same time he saw an immense mult.i.tude of people running toward him from the city. The nearer they approached the more distinctly he discerned the motly combination of the crowd that came gus.h.i.+ng forth on foot, on horseback and in carriages. It had the appearance of a formal national migration. Judges and clergymen, patricians and plebeians, the old and the infirm, women and children, indiscriminately mingled with various kinds of property apparently collected in the haste incidental to a sudden conflagration, packed up and borne along with them, successively and rapidly pa.s.sed the wanderer. The men in a state of great excitement conversing eagerly with each other, the women weeping, and the children crying, they moved on in a seemingly endless procession.

Alf, transfixed with surprise and astonishment, and resting on his walking staff with his heavy knapsack on his hack, stood gazing upon the pa.s.sing mult.i.tude. All had finally pa.s.sed except one old burgher who toiled singly on after the crowd, panting for breath. Alf stopped him in the way and said, 'by your leave father, what means this general flight? Is Munster beset by hostile armies?'

'Alas, worse than that,' answered the graybeard, wiping his eyes, 'the anabaptists have become masters of the city this fearful night, and are driving before them all who do not belong to their sect, sword in hand.'

'G.o.d be praised!' cried Alf with wild enthusiasm, 'the true faith is triumphant!'

The burgher cast upon the youngster an angry and scornful look. 'Folly may be forgiven to rash, inexperienced and imprudent youth,' said he, 'yet you may nevertheless be compelled to answer to the Lord for this horrible praise of his name.'

He then turned his back upon the youth and strode on after the procession. Alf no longer felt the weight of his knapsack, but sprang forward toward Munster with joyful leaps. He soon, however, encountered a new ma.s.s of fugitives, among whom he could not easily penetrate--and the dust raised by people, cattle, horses and carriages, becoming insufferable, Alf retreated into a solitary inn by the way side, until the tumult had pa.s.sed away.

As he laid down his knapsack in the tap room and called for a cup of wine, the door opened and in tottered a pale thin man in a long black clerical robe. He was followed by a light das.h.i.+ng fellow with the countenance of a satyr, who carried his bundle for him.

'I can go no further,' groaned the pale man, sinking down upon the nearest seat.

'Now, doctor, you are for the present indeed in safety,' said his attendant to him, depositing the bundle upon the stove-bench. 'Permit me to take a refres.h.i.+ng draught, and then to bid you farewell.'

'Thou dost not wish, then, to go to the good Hessenland, my son?' asked the doctor, sorrowfully.

'No,' answered the youth, 'but do not consider me unkind. I return to Munster. New governors will require new clothes, because much of the dignity of office consists in the dress. My needle will not be permitted to remain idle there, and I shall make great profits.

Moreover the doctrine of liberty and equality was plain to me from the beginning; and if the good people would not come so easily to blows, nothing could be said against it.'

'I thought you held fast to the ancient faith,' said the doctor complainingly, 'since you sustained me so truly.'

'No,' laughingly replied the hare-brained youth. 'I held to you while you benefitted me; and on that account I could not reconcile it to myself to desert you in your hour of need. Now you are in safety; and I must return to the only place where fellows like myself are held in some degree of estimation; in any other I might remain all my life a wandering ragam.u.f.fin.'

'One deception less,' sighed the doctor sinking into gloomy meditation, when the host entered with a mug of wine for Alf. When he perceived the doctor the mug fell, and, clasping his hands over his head, he cried: 'Holy G.o.d! are you also driven away, reverend sir?'

'The true shepherds must first be driven away,' said the doctor with a melancholy smile, 'when the wolf desires undisturbedly to break into the unfortunate fold. Nevertheless I may congratulate myself that I held out until the last moment, and only yielded to open violence.'

'How was that possible in so short a time, doctor?' asked the host.

'The adherents of the Augsburg confession were certainly very powerful as yet, in the city, as the papists also were.'

'The terrible Matthias,' replied the doctor, 'had sent circulars through the neighborhood and collected all the anabaptists at Munster.

Consequently, all the low rabble, who had nothing at home to lose, rushed into the poor city, and last night, taking possession of the a.r.s.enal and town house, they set fire to the cloisters of Mauritius.

They ran, as if possessed, howling through the streets with naked swords, crying, 'Repent and be baptised!' and 'Depart ye G.o.dless!'

Neither condition, age, nor s.e.x availed; delicate women, the sick and dying, were all mercilessly thrust out at the gates of their native city unless they would profess the heretical, heathenish wors.h.i.+p. The choice between death, flight, and apostacy, only remained, even to me; and as I thought it better to be useful through the preaching of the word to honest christians than through martyrdom in the paws of such raging brutes, I shook the dust from my feet and escaped,--and G.o.d must judge.'

'I am very sorry for you,' cried Alf, much agitated: 'because you have such a venerable appearance, and doubtless think yourself truly faithful, though you wander in darkness. Nevertheless, it is a culpable stubbornness in you Lutherans, to struggle so violently against the new doctrines, which have the right and the holy scriptures so clearly on their side. Has not our Lord and Savior expressly commanded his Apostles--'Go ye into all the world and teach all people and baptize them?' So therefore, the teaching must precede the baptism, according to Christ's own words. How dare you, then, presume to baptize new born children who can know nothing of G.o.d?'

'What, another anabaptist!' grumbled the host, with a discontented glance at the speaker; and the worthy doctor directed his eyes, full of heartfelt sorrow, upon the youth, and sighed--'Another lamb gone astray from the flock, whom I cannot lead back to the protecting fold. This it is, that makes me sad.'

'You have not answered my question,' said Alf, with the triumph of the controversialist.

'Of what advantage is it to show the way to the blind, who will not see it?' cried the doctor: 'I could answer you, that Christ's apostles could only baptize adults, because those only came over to christianity at first; but that, at a later period, the burning zeal of the great Augustine placed near the heart of the christian fathers the duty of consecrating their children to Christ through the holy baptism into the covenant, and thereby to deliver them from the original sin and impart to them the redemption through Christ, before peradventure they should be s.n.a.t.c.hed away in their tender youth by a premature death. Would to G.o.d that this schism was the only one that your companions in your mistaken faith defend with such terrible obstinacy and fierceness. You have yet other dogmas which you advance, sufficient to convert our earth, G.o.d's beautiful temple, into a den of murderers. Your community of goods, your equality of rank, your struggle against secular authority, lead directly to lawless confusion, robbery, murder, and unhappy revolution.'

'Even the best opinions may be misconstrued,' replied Alf, angrily.

'The gospel looks upon all men as equal. The distinctions made among them by birth, rank, and wealth, are contrary to its spirit. Christians who possess the doctrines of G.o.d as precepts, and take his spirit for their guide, need no power that destroys religious liberty without authority. They are able to govern themselves by the word of G.o.d, and the Holy Spirit will always guide them, that they stumble not in the paths in which they are led by their faith.'

'Unhappy, infatuated youth!' cried the doctor, with a majestic prophetic look and tone. 'Go now into the unfortunate city, and behold how the anabaptist spirit has conducted your companions to robbery, incendiarism and murder, in the smoking ruins of the cloister, and in the bleeding bodies which strew the highways! If this horrible spectacle be not enough to move your heart, think of the words which in this sad hour I address to you in the name of that G.o.d whom your proceedings profane. These crimes will be but the beginning of your afflictions. Your equality will yet be to you but equality of misery--your community of goods will bring you to beggary. Instead of the magistracy which you now drive away, miscreants will rise up from the midst of you, and with b.l.o.o.d.y hands rend your own entrails, until the wrath of a long suffering G.o.d finally awakes, until the avenger appears, and you all perish in one common ruin.'

'There come hors.e.m.e.n galloping,' cried the doctor's attendant, who was standing at the window with his cup; 'and, if I see rightly, they bear our lord bishop's colors. It might be well for me to go back to the city.'