Read Online Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist by Heinrich von Kleist - Free Book Online Page A

what’s going on.” Sheathing his sword, the Negro strode to the bed and asked the stranger who he was, where he came from and where he was headed. But since the latter, twisting and turning to break free, made no reply but the pitifully muttered words: “Oh, Toni! Oh, Toni!” the mother spoke up and said he was a Swiss by the name of Gustav von der Ried, and that he and his filthy brood of European dogs, who at this very moment were hiding out in caves by the seagull pond, came from the coastal outpost of Fort Dauphin. Hoango, who saw the girl seated in a woeful state with her head buried in her hands, walked over to her and called her his dear girl, clapped her on the cheeks and begged her to forgive his having hastily suspected her. The old woman, who likewise approached the girl, shaking her head, flung her hands in the air, and asked: “Why then, if the stranger knew nothing of the impending danger he was in, did you bind him to the bed?” Turning suddenly to her mother, Toni, who was now crying real tears of heartache and fury, replied: “Because you have no eyes and ears! Because he did indeed grasp the danger he was in! Because he wanted to escape and begged me to help him! Because he intended to make an attempt on your own life, and had I not tied him up while still asleep, would surely have carried out his plan at daybreak!” Old Hoango covered the girl withcaresses, trying to calm her down, and ordered Babekan to speak no more of this. He called for several guards with muskets to promptly carry out the sentence prescribed by the law on the stranger, but Babekan whispered in his ear: “For heaven’s sake, no, Hoango!” She took him aside and gave him to understand: “Before being executed, the stranger must be made to write an invitation, with the help of which we will lure to the plantation his family, whose capture would otherwise involve considerable risk.” Considering the fact that the family was most likely not unarmed, Hoango concurred with this recommendation; but seeing as it was too late to make the prisoner write such a letter, he posted two guards at his bedside; and after once again inspecting the rope himself, finding that it was too loose, and calling upon two of his men to tie it more tightly, he left the room with his retinue, and things settled back into an apparent calm.
    But only pretending to go to bed, Toni bid good-night to the old Negro, who once again gave her his hand, and got up again as soon as the house was still, slipped out the back door and rushed into the field, and ran with her breast heaving in the darkest despair out to the highway to the path Monsieur Strömli’s family would have to take. The looks of contempt that the stranger shot at her from his bed pierced her heart like the thrusts of a knife; a feeling of hot bitterness mingled with the love she felt for him, and she exulted at the thought of dying in the course of carrying out his rescue. Afraid of missing the family if she tried to head them off, she waited by the trunk of a stone pine, by which, presuming they accepted the invitation, the group was bound to pass; and no sooner did the first flicker of dawn break on the horizon than, true to her instructions, Nanky’s voice could already be heard in the distance, leading them along.
    The group comprised Monsieur Strömli and his wife, the latter riding on a mule, their five children, two of which, Adelbert and Gottfried, big strapping boys of eighteen and seventeen, respectively, walked beside the animal; three servants and two maids, one of whom, with a baby at her breast, rode the second mule; in all, they counted twelve. Making their way slowly over the protruding roots at the edge of the forest, they came to the stone pine, where Toni stepped out of the shadow as silently as possible, so as not to scare anyone, and called out: “Halt!” Nanky immediately recognized her and when she asked, as men,