“Nychol,” said his wife, “they are in search of some malefactor; that’s
the horn of the bowmen.”
“The horn of the bowmen!” repeated each of the company, in different
accents, but Spiagudry in tones of unmistakable terror.
They had scarcely uttered the words when there was a knock at the door.
XIII.
Only a man, a sign, is needed; the elements of revolution are
ready. Who will be the first? So soon as there is a fulcrum,
everything will move.--BONAPARTE.
Loevig is a large town, situated on the north side of Throndhjem fjord,
and sheltered by a low chain of bare hills, singularly diversified by
various sorts of crops, like broad bits of mosaic resting upon the
horizon. The appearance of the town is gloomy; the fishermen’s cabins,
made of twigs and reeds, the conical hut, constructed of earth and
stones, in which the invalid miner spends the few days which his scanty
savings allow him to devote to sunshine and rest, and the frail ruin
which the chamois-hunter in his turn decks with a straw roof and walls
hung with skins, line streets longer than the town itself, because they
are narrow and crooked. In a square where now exist only the remains of
a great tower, once stood the ancient fortress built by Horda the Fine
Archer, lord of Loevig, and brother-in-arms of the pagan king Halfdan,
occupied in 1698 by the mayor of the town, who would have been the
best-lodged citizen in the city, if it had not been for the silvery
stork who every summer perched on the tip of the sharp spire of the
church, like the white pearl on the top of a mandarin’s pointed cap.
On the morning of the same day that Ordener reached Throndhjem, another
personage, also incognito, landed at Loevig. His gilded litter, although
without armorial bearings, his four tall lackeys, armed to the teeth,
instantly became the topic of every conversation, and roused the
curiosity of all. The landlord of the Golden Gull, a small tavern at
which the great man alighted, himself assumed an air of mystery, and
answered every question with an “I don’t know,” which seemed to imply,
“I know all, but you shall know nothing.” The tall lackeys were as mute
as fishes, and more obscure than the mouth of a mine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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