"The most forbidding, disagreeable, uncivil pair I ever saw in my life!" said I.
"They're not fascinating, I admit," said Bergheim, leaning back in his chair with the air of a man whose appetite is somewhat appeased. "I don't know which is the worst—their wine or their manners."
And then he yawned tremendously, and pushed out his plate, which I heaped afresh with ham and eggs. When he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he leaned his head upon his hand, and declared he was too tired to eat more.
"And yet," he added, "I am still hungry."
"Nonsense!" I said; "eat enough now you are about it. How is the beer?"
He took a pull at the Schoppen.
"Capital," he said. "Now I can go on again."
The next instant he was nodding over his plate.
"I am ashamed to be so stupid," he said, rousing himself presently; "but I am overpowered with fatigue. Let us have the coffee; it will wake me up a bit."
But he had no sooner said this than his chin dropped on his breast, and he was sound asleep.
I did not call for the coffee immediately. I let him sleep, and went on quietly with my supper. Just as I had done, however, the brothers came back together, Friedrich bringing the coffee—two large cups on a tray. The elder, standing by the table, looked down at Bergheim with his unfriendly frown.
"Your friend is tired," he said.
"Yes, he has walked far to-day—much farther than I have."
"Humph! you will be glad to go to bed."
"Indeed we shall. Are our rooms ready?"
"Yes."
I took one of the cups, and put the other beside Bergheim's plate.
"Here, Bergheim," I said, "wake up; the coffee is waiting."
But he slept on, and never heard me.
I then lifted my own cup to my lips—paused—set it down untasted. It had an odd, pungent smell that I did not like.
"What is the matter with it?" I said, "it does not smell like pure coffee."
The brothers exchanged a rapid glance.
"It is the Kirschenwasser," said Karl. "We always put it in our black coffee."
I tasted it, but the flavour of the coffee was quite drowned in that of the coarse, fiery spirit.
"Do you not like it?" asked the younger brother.
"It is very strong," I said.
"But it is very good," replied he; "real Black Forest Kirsch—the best thing in the world, if one is tired after a journey. Drink it off, mein Herr; it is of no use to sip it. It will make you sleep."
This was the longest speech either of them had yet made.
"Thanks," I said, pulling out my cigar-case, "but this stuff is too powerful to be drunk at a draught. I shall make it last out a cigar or two."
"And your friend?"
"He is better without the Kirsch, and may sleep till I am ready to go to bed."
Again they looked at each other.
"You need not sit up," I said impatiently; for it annoyed me, somehow, to have them standing there, one at each side of the table, alternately looking at me and at each other. "I will call the Mädchen to show us to our rooms when we are ready."
"Good," said the elder brother, after a moment's hesitation. "Come, Friedrich."
Friedrich turned at once to follow him, and they both left the room.
I listened. I heard them for awhile moving to and fro in the inner kitchen; then the sound of their double footsteps going up the stairs; then the murmur of their voices somewhere above, yet not exactly overhead; then silence.
I felt more comfortable, now that they were fairly gone, and not likely to return. I breathed more freely. I had disliked the brothers from the first. I had felt uneasy from the moment I crossed their threshold. Nothing, I told myself, should induce me at any time, or under any circumstances, to put up under their roof again.
Pondering thus, I smoked on, and took another sip of the coffee. It was not so hot now, and some of the strength of the spirit had gone off; but under the flavour of the Kirschenwasser I could (or fancied I could) detect another flavour, pungent and bitter—a flavour, in short, just corresponding to the smell that I had at first noticed.
This startled me. I scarcely knew why, but it did startle me, and somewhat unpleasantly. At the same instant I observed that Bergheim, in the heaviness and helplessness of sleep, had swayed over on one side, and was hanging very uncomfortably across one arm of his chair.
"Come, come," I said, "wake up, Herr fellow-traveller. This sort of dozing will do you no good. Wake up, and come to bed."
And with this I took him by the arm, and tried to rouse him. Then for the first time I observed that his face was deadly white—that his teeth were fast clenched—that his breathing was unnatural and laboured.
I sprang to my feet. I dragged him into an upright posture; I tore open his neckcloth; I was on the point of rushing to the door to call for help, when a suspicion—one of those terrible suspicions which are suspicion and conviction in one—flashed suddenly upon me.
The rejected glass of wine was still standing on the table. I smelt it—tasted it. My dread was confirmed. It had the same pungent odour, the same bitter flavour as the coffee.
In a moment I measured all the horror of my position; alone—unarmed—my unconscious fellow-traveller drugged and helpless on my hands—the murderers overhead, biding their time—the silence and darkness of night—the unfrequented road—the solitary house—the improbability of help from without—the imminence of the danger from within. … I saw it all! What could I do? Was there any way, any chance, any hope?
I turned cold and dizzy. I leaned against the table for support. Was I also drugged, and was my turn coming? I looked round for water, but there was none upon the table. I did not dare to touch the beer, lest it also should be doctored.
At that instant I heard a faint sound outside, like the creaking of a stair. My presence of mind had not as yet for a moment deserted me, and now my strength came back at the approach of danger. I cast a rapid glance round the room. There was the blunderbuss over the chimney-piece—there were the two hatchets in the corner. I moved a chair loudly, and hummed some snatches of songs.
They should know that I was awake—this might at least keep them off a little longer. The scraps of songs covered the sound of my footsteps as I stole across the room and secured the hatchets. One of these I laid before me on the table; the other I hid among the wood in the wood-basket beside the hearth-singing, as it were to myself; all the time.
Then I listened breathlessly.
All was silent.
Then I clinked my tea-spoon in my cup—feigned a long yawn—under cover of the yawn took down the blunderbuss from its hook—and listened again.
Still all was silent—silent as death—save only the loud ticking of the clock in the corner, and the heavy beating of my heart.
Then, after a few seconds that dragged past like hours, I distinctly heard a muffled tread stealing softly across the floor overhead, and another very faint retreating creak or two upon the stairs.
To examine the blunderbuss, find it loaded with a heavy charge of slugs, test the dryness of the powder, cock it, and place it ready for use beside