ck portfolio made everything clear. Along with
Hubert's traitorous correspondence with Daniel was a sheet of paper
written and signed by Daniel. V---- read a confession at which his very
soul trembled, appalled. It was at Daniel's instigation that Hubert had
come to R--sitten; and it was Daniel again who had written and told him
about the one hundred and fifty thousand thalers that had been found.
It has been already described how Hubert was received by his brother,
and how, deceived in all his hopes and wishes, he was about to go off
when he was prevented by V----, Daniel's heart was tortured by an
insatiable thirst for vengeance, which he was determined to take on the
young man who had proposed to kick him out like a mangy cur. He it was
who relentlessly and incessantly fanned the flame of passion by which
Hubert's desperate heart was consumed. Whilst in the fir forests
hunting wolves, out in the midst of a blinding snowstorm, they agreed
to effect his destruction. "Make away with him!" murmured Hubert,
looking askance and taking aim with his rifle. "Yes, make away with
him," snarled Daniel, "but not in _that way_, not in _that way!_" And
he made the most solemn asseverations that he would murder the Freiherr
and not a soul in the world should be the wiser. When, however, Hubert
had got his money, he repented of the plot; he determined to go away in
order to shun all further temptation. Daniel himself saddled his horse
and brought it out of the stable; but as the Baron was about to mount,
Daniel said to him in a sharp, strained voice, "I thought you would
stay on the entail, Freiherr Hubert, now that it has just fallen to
you, for the proud lord of the entail lies dashed to pieces at the
bottom of the ravine, below the tower." The steward had observed that
Wolfgang, tormented by his thirst for gold, often used to rise in the
night, go to the postern which formerly led to the tower, and stand
gazing with longing eyes down into the chasm, where, according to his
(Daniel's) testimony, vast treasures lay buried. Relying upon this
habit, Daniel waited near the hall-door on that ill-omened night; and
as soon as he heard the Freiherr open the postern leading to the tower,
he entered the hall and proceeded to where the Freiherr was standing,
close by the brink of the chasm. On becoming aware of the presence of
his villainous servant, in whose eyes the gleam of murder shone, the
Freiherr turned round and said with a cry of terro