“Our daughter!” exclaimed the haughty countess; and she fixed her eye on Musdœmon with a look of pride and contempt.
“Well,” coldly continued the messenger, “I think that Ulrica is at least as much mine as his. I was saying that the match would not be wholly satisfactory to your husband unless Schumacker could at the same time be destroyed. In his remote prison the old favorite is yet almost as much to be dreaded as in his palace. He has obscure but powerful friends at court,--powerful because they are obscure; and the king, learning a month since that the chancellor’s negotiations with the Duke of Holstein-Ploen were at a standstill, cried out impatiently: ‘Griffenfeld knew more than all of them put together.’ A schemer named Dispolsen, come from Munkholm to Copenhagen, had several secret interviews with him, after which the king sent to the chancellor’s office for Schumacker’s patents of nobility and title-deeds. No one knows the object of Schumacker’s ambition; but if he desire nothing but his liberty, for a prisoner of state that is the same as to desire power! He must therefore die, and must die by authority of justice; we are now striving to invent a crime for him. Your husband, Elphega, on the plea of inspecting the northern provinces incognito, will assure himself of the result of our underhand dealings among the miners, whom we hope to incite to rebel, in Schumacker’s name, which revolt we can easily put down later. What troubles us is the loss of certain important papers relating to this plot, and which we have every reason to believe have fallen into the hands of Dispolsen. Knowing that he had set out to return to Munkholm, carrying to Schumacker his parchments, his diplomas, and possibly these documents which might ruin, or at least compromise us, we posted certain faithful men in the gorges of Kiölen, directing them to rid us of him, after robbing him of his papers. But if, as we are assured, Dispolsen left Bergen by water, our efforts in that quarter are in vain. However, as I came along I gathered vague reports of the murder of a captain by the name of Dispolsen. We shall see. Meantime we are searching for a famous bandit, Hans, called Hans of Iceland, whom we wish to put at the head of the revolt in the mines. And you, my dear,--what news have you for me here? Has the pretty bird at Munkholm been caught in her cage? Has the old minister’s daughter finally fallen a prey to our _falco fulvus_, our son Frederic?”