The Deans Watch | Page 6

girl, "the cask
isn't empty. You needn't bother to--" "Mind your own business,"
interrupted the mistress, whose candle was already lighting up the
passageway. I had barely time to squat down again behind the cask,
when the old woman, stooping beneath the low, dingy ceiling, passed
from one keg to another, mumbling as she went: "Oh! the little wretch.
How she lets the wine leak. I'll teach her to close the spigots tighter; did
ever any one see the like?" The candle threw great shadows against the
damp wall. I huddled closer and closer. Suddenly, just as I thought the
visit happily ended, and was beginning to breathe easier again, I heard
the old creature give a sigh so long and so full of woe that I knew
something unusual was happening. I risked just the least glance, and I
saw Dame Grédel Dick, her under jaw dropped and her eyes sticking
out of her head, staring at the bottom of the barrel behind which I lay.
She had caught sight of one of my feet underneath the joist that served
as a wedge to keep the cask in place. She evidently believed she had
discovered the chief of the robbers concealed there for the purpose of
strangling her during the night. I formed a sudden resolution. "Madame,
for God's sake, have pity on me!" I cried: "I am--" Without looking at
me, or listening to a word I said, she set up an ear-splitting shriek and
started up the stairs as quickly as her great weight would permit. Seized

with inexpressible terror, I clung to her skirt and went down on my
knees. This only made matters worse. "Help! seize the assassin! Oh, my
God! release me! Take my money! Oh! Oh!"
It was horrible. In vain did I cry: "Only look at me, my dear madame; I
am not what you think me!" She was beside herself with fear; she raved
and screamed in such piercing tones that had we not been underground,
the whole neighborhood would inevitably have been aroused. In this
extremity, consulting only my rage, I overturned her, and gaining the
door before her, I slammed it in her face, taking care to slip the bolt.
During the struggle the candle had been extinguished and Dame Grédel
was left in the dark. Her cries grew fainter and fainter. I stared at
Annette, giddy, and with hardly strength enough left to stand. Her
agitation equaled mine. We neither of us seemed able to speak, and
stood listening to the expiring cries of the mistress, which soon ceased
altogether. The poor woman had fainted.
"Oh! Kasper," cried Annette, wringing her hands, "what is to be done?
Fly! fly! You may have been heard! Did you kill her?" "Kill her? I?" "I
am so glad! But fly! I will open the door for you." She unbarred it, and
I fled into the street, without stopping even to thank her; but I was so
terrified and there was not a moment to lose. The night was inky black;
not a star in the sky, and the street lamps unlighted. The weather was
abominable; it was snowing hard and the wind howled dismally. Not
until I had run for a good half-hour did I stop to take breath. Imagine
my horror when I found myself directly opposite the Pied de Mouton
Tavern. In my terror I had run around the square a dozen times for
aught I knew. My legs felt like lead and my knees tottered under me.
The inn, but a moment before deserted, swarmed like a bee-hive, and
lights danced about from window to window. It was evidently filled
with the police. And now, at my wits' end, desperate, exhausted with
cold and hunger, and not knowing where to find refuge, I resolved upon
the strangest possible course. "By Jove," I said to myself, "as well be
hanged as leave my bones on the road to the Black Forest." And I
walked into the tavern with the intention of giving myself up to the
officials. Besides the fellows with their cocked hats tilted rakishly over

their ears, and the clubs fastened to their wrists, whom I had already
seen in the morning, and who were now running here and there, and
turning everything upside down, there was the bailiff, Zimmer,
standing before one of the tables, dressed in black, with a grave air and
penetrating glance, and near him the secretary Roth, with his red wig,
imposing countenance, and large ears, flat as oyster shells. They paid
no attention to my entrance, and this circumstance altered my
resolution at once. I sat down in a corner of the room behind the big
cast-iron stove, in company with two or three of the neighbors, who
had run hither to see