Part 21

The events that followed occurred in rapid succession. The door of the car was flung open, and hands gripped him by the shoulders, which lay nearest the door. They dragged him out, his feet striking painfully on the step and then on the ground. The second man took his legs, and they carried him a short distance. Then Wenk saw sand-dunes in front of him, and a few steps further the men had climbed with him to the top.

“Faster!” cried the man behind, as he turned round and looked back over the landscape.

Wenk heard a motor-car, and said to himself, “That is Mabuse coming!” Suddenly a light awning appeared above him, and after a time he recognized it for the wing of an aeroplane.

The two men arranged everything with hasty movements. Wenk was laid on the sand, and two cords tied together made a noose under his chest and arms. One man raised his legs and these were fastened by two cords which had been attached somewhere to a pole rather high up. A third leash was then slung round his hips. It was not long before Wenk realized that he was hanging bound to the outer wall of the car of a flying-machine. He lay closely fastened there like a package that was to be taken on a journey. With his uncovered right eye he saw beyond the edge of the bandage that the aeroplane stood on a prepared landing-stage over a course which sloped down to the sea. Beyond it stretched the shore. It was ebb-tide.

“I am going to have a sea voyage,” cried a despairing voice within Wenk sadly. “How long it is since my last voyage. All the years of war lie between, and yet now, for me, comes the war--the bombshell is prepared.”

From the depths of his muscular being there came an answer to this sad voice of despair. He exerted his muscles against his bonds. His body moved and wriggled in the nooses, and the wing of the machine quivered beneath the shock, and swayed above him.

Then a broad face and a high, well-formed head bent over him, and two fiery eyes seemed to pierce him through and through.

“Aha!” said the voice of the man who stood above him.

“Yes, there is the foe, there is Mabuse,” thought Wenk.

“Get in!” he heard him say, and there was the rustling of a woman’s dress, and out of the rustling a voice ... a voice that made his knees tremble in their bonds. He knew that voice! The rustling was louder and closer, and the woman’s voice cried, “What is that?” Wenk heard the horror, trouble and anxiety that spoke in the voice as she put the question.

“Get in!” said Mabuse again. Then the voice, the well-known, low, sweet voice of the Countess Told, said in a tone of anxious entreaty, “What are you doing with this man?”

Wenk said to himself, “She does not know who I am.”

“Get in! He’s going to make the trip with us, and we haven’t a third seat. Come along quickly, now!” cried Mabuse.

Wenk saw Mabuse’s arm seize the woman and lift her into the gondola, then he himself got in, making use of Wenk’s body as a step, and when he was settled in the pilot’s seat, not two fingers’ breadth above Wenk, he bent down to him and said in a harsh tone, “The gentleman is going to accompany us on our journey--but whither? Good luck!--All ready?” he called out to the men.

“All quite ready, sir!”

The propeller hummed and the aeroplane glided along the course so swiftly that the very moment Wenk felt the throbbing of the engine its wheels were already clear of the ground and the earth vanished from his sight. The machine soared upwards steeply, and it seemed to Wenk as if his body were standing upright. No word was spoken in the car. The air beat so heavily upon him that it seemed like flying wood, and he soon began to feel bitterly cold. The cold seemed to cut through the wide opening of his evening suit and strike at his very heart. He felt that it pressed ever deeper and deeper within him, like revolving knives. His hair was stiff and stood on end, and it seemed as if needles were pricking him all over. He had lost all capability of thought, save for one idea. It dimly occurred to him that he was enduring martyrdom, and that this martyrdom was on account of the Countess Told, whom he had once loved, at a time when such love was not lawful.

Then he felt the blow of a fist on his head, and a harsh voice asked, “Is twelve thousand feet high enough for you?” A few moments later he heard, “Or are you already dead--of fright?”

The voice died away and Wenk felt that the aeroplane was being righted. When it was flying level, a hand touched his head, hastily tearing away his bonds. Then Wenk saw the face of Mabuse bending over him. He was silent, but his features were distorted with a malicious joy which aroused horror. His grey eyes had neither shape nor pupils; they were like old weather-beaten stones, and, as Wenk recognized with a shudder, they were glowering death at him. Then the capacious mouth opened like the yawning chasm in a rocky gorge, and the harsh voice said, “You have dared to oppose your will against mine. You are now facing your last moment, and I have taken the gag from your mouth so that my ears may enjoy the shriek with which you fall twelve thousand feet down to your own world!”

Wenk heard his voice, and it sounded like thunder rolling along after the lightning flash. He saw that Mabuse was loosening the bonds that held his legs. He tugged and tore at them. Suddenly his legs were free. For a moment they fell, then the leash that was bound round his hips held them again, and the hands were now busy with this. In a few seconds it was untied.

In his further fall Wenk’s body regained an upright position, held only by the noose which bound his chest to the wall of the car. He suddenly felt that his hands were free, and at this feeling he was fired with a sudden hope. In the midst of his phantasies there surged upwards like a fairy story the recollection of the Countess’s beauty and sympathy. He had never forgotten her, and now in the last moment of his life, when she herself was so close to him, his feeling for her, exalted to an undying and compassionate brotherhood, was wafted as a cloud beyond the savage and brutal murderer, to envelop the frail human being beside him with indomitable pride and courage.

Wenk saw her eyes, fluttering like birds shot down in the clear blue ether, glance for a moment beyond and above Mabuse’s eager bent head.... He saw her hands, tearing off their fur gloves, cling white and trembling to Mabuse’s shoulder as she strove to drag him back from his deadly intent.

But Mabuse shook the woman off, and raised his hands with mad rage to untie the last noose. He tore undone the first of its fastenings, making Wenk’s body sink deeper, and beat away Wenk’s hands, which were seeking to maintain a grip on the edge of the car, with his closed fists.

Then one last defiance of fate, arising from the will to live, lent strength to Wenk’s voice as he shouted in the air, “He is the murderer of Count Told. He made him cheat at cards! He put the razor into his hands that he might cut his throat!”

A fist struck at his mouth, and blood spurted from it, yet at this last moment of his life it seemed as if his very blood were tasting the sweetness of a noble spirit. Then a final effort was made to release him from the bond that held him. A fearful weight pressed on his head, rolled over his body to press him downward. The weight of it was immeasurable, black, imbued with the swiftness of a raging storm. But all at once the iron weight was removed. A part of it became detached from the aeroplane, unrecognizable, and sank. Wenk’s hands held the edge of the car as in a vice. The aeroplane hovered and swayed as if drunken with the high clear air.

* * * * *

This is what had happened:

When Count Told’s name rang through the air, as if thrown from measureless space, it seemed to the Countess as if she were awaking from a dream at the bottom of a swamp. Since the night when she had been torn from her husband and chained to Mabuse’s wicked will, she had never spoken his name, nor even thought of it. The memory had crept into her inmost being and hidden itself away, deep in the welter in which her life was inextricably bound. It had been forced there by the diabolic power of Mabuse’s lust for domination, and the wife had suffered it in a kind of subconscious self-defence. Were it not so, she would have been absolutely and entirely without escape from the werwolf.

There within her the name had lain and waited and watched until now it arose again to provide her with a way of escape.

Wenk’s last words had brought it forth from the subconscious recesses once more. The Countess had received it as a direct weapon against the secret power of this man who had so long taken forcible possession of her will and her entire person. She suddenly came to herself, and all that was frozen within her melted. The gloom and darkness in which she lay bound grew lighter, and it was day within.

Then, too, she regained all the proud youthful force of her disposition. She fell into a God-given fury, and her muscles were endowed with unconquerable strength and vigour. Her hands and her heart were like iron, and she seized the first weapon to hand, the heavy screw-wrench, striking the murderer from behind, and dealing a terrific blow upon his skull.

Mabuse, judged and condemned, lost his balance, and fell over Wenk into the depths below, which instantly swallowed him up.

* * * * *

Wenk reached a thwart with his legs, raised himself up at lightning speed, the knots at his breast breaking of themselves. He fell into the car. The aeroplane was already swaying in space, but Wenk seized the throttle and righted it. It flew on, and after he had found his whereabouts he shut off the engines and allowed it to descend to earth and glide along the shore.

He landed on the sand-dunes of the East Frisian coast. He helped the Countess out of the machine. She was pale, but fully conscious. She fell down before him, pressing her hands to her face.

He raised her, saying, “We have saved each other’s lives. Let us keep silent, and strive to forget. We part here!”

But the Countess answered, “No. I have nothing to conceal and nothing to forget. The blood that I have shed was entirely evil. I have saved him from himself and mankind from him. Who can bear witness against me?”

Wenk looked at her, dumb with astonishment, but slowly he understood. Then he was seized with awe. He wanted to say, “How proud, how courageous she is!” but his heart glowed within him. He spread out his arms in a gesture of self-abandonment and appeal. Life, his regained youth and vigour, came over him like a flood, and at the same moment the love which had been shaken by so many vicissitudes, but had never yet found its fulfilment, regained its sway over him.

Then they ascended the dunes together, to seek the nearest village and return to daily life.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.