Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER XII.

So this was the young man's se­cret! This was the source from which he ex­pect­ed to de­rive a for­tune for his promised bride--a lot­tery tick­et, pur­chased be­fore his de­par­ture. And as the “Viking” was go­ing down, he in­closed the tick­et in a bot­tle and threw it in­to the sea with the last farewell for Hul­da.

This time Sylvius Hogg was com­plete­ly dis­con­cert­ed. He looked at the let­ter, then at the tick­et. He was speech­less with dis­may. Be­sides, what could he say? How could any one doubt that the “Viking” had gone down with all on board?

While Sylvius Hogg was read­ing the let­ter Hul­da had nerved her­self to lis­ten, but af­ter the con­clud­ing words had been read, she fell back un­con­scious in Joel's arms, and it be­came nec­es­sary to car­ry her to her own lit­tle cham­ber, where her moth­er ad­min­is­tered restora­tives. Af­ter she re­cov­ered con­scious­ness she asked to be left alone for awhile, and she was now kneel­ing by her bed­side, pray­ing for Ole Kamp's soul.

Dame Hansen re­turned to the hall. At first she start­ed to­ward the pro­fes­sor, as if with the in­ten­tion of speak­ing to him, then sud­den­ly turn­ing to­ward the stair­case, she dis­ap­peared.

Joel, on re­turn­ing from his sis­ter's room, had hasti­ly left the house. He ex­pe­ri­enced a feel­ing of suf­fo­ca­tion in the dwelling over which such a dense cloud of mis­for­tune seemed to be hang­ing. He longed for the out­er air, the fierce blast of the tem­pest, and spent a part of the night in wan­der­ing aim­less­ly up and down the banks of the Maan.

Sylvius Hogg was there­fore left alone. Stunned by the stroke at first, he soon re­cov­ered his wont­ed en­er­gy. Af­ter tramp­ing up and down the hall two or three times, he paused and lis­tened, in the hope that he might hear a sum­mons from the young girl, but dis­ap­point­ed in this, he fi­nal­ly seat­ed him­self at the ta­ble, and aban­doned him­self to his thoughts.

“Can it be pos­si­ble that Hul­da is nev­er to see her be­trothed again?” he said to him­self. “No; such a mis­for­tune is in­con­ceiv­able. Ev­ery­thing that is with­in me re­volts at the thought! Even ad­mit­ting that the 'Viking' has gone to the bot­tom of the ocean, what con­clu­sive proof have we of Ole's death? I can not be­lieve it. In all cas­es of ship­wreck time alone can de­ter­mine whether or not any one has sur­vived the catas­tro­phe. Yes; I still have my doubts, and I shall con­tin­ue to have them, even if Hul­da and Joel refuse to share them. If the 'Viking' re­al­ly foundered, how does it hap­pen that no float­ing frag­ments of the wreck have been seen at sea--at least noth­ing ex­cept the bot­tle in which poor Ole placed his last mes­sage, and with it all he had left in the world.”

Sylvius Hogg had the tick­et still in his hand, and again he looked at it, and turned it over and held it up be­tween him and the wan­ing light--this scrap of pa­per up­on which poor Ole had based his hopes of for­tune.

But the pro­fes­sor, wish­ing to ex­am­ine it still more care­ful­ly, rose, lis­tened again to sat­is­fy him­self that the poor girl up­stairs was not call­ing her moth­er or broth­er, and then en­tered his room.

The tick­et proved to be a tick­et in the Chris­tia­nia Schools Lot­tery--a very pop­ular lot­tery in Nor­way at that time. The cap­ital prize was one hun­dred thou­sand marks; the to­tal val­ue of the oth­er prizes, nine­ty thou­sand marks, and the num­ber of tick­ets is­sued, one mil­lion, all of which had been sold.

Ole Kamp's tick­et bore the num­ber 9672; but whether this num­ber proved lucky or un­lucky, whether the young sailor had any se­cret rea­son for his con­fi­dence in it or not, he would not be present at the draw­ing, which was to take place on the fif­teenth of Ju­ly, that is to say, in twen­ty-​eight days; but it was his last re­quest that Hul­da should take his place on that oc­ca­sion.

By the light of his can­dle, Sylvius Hogg care­ful­ly reread the lines writ­ten up­on the back of the tick­et, as if with the hope of dis­cov­er­ing some hid­den mean­ing.

The lines had been writ­ten with ink, and it was ev­ident that Ole's hand had not trem­bled while trac­ing them. This showed that the mate of the 'Viking' re­tained all his pres­ence of mind at the time of the ship­wreck, and that he was con­se­quent­ly in a con­di­tion to take ad­van­tage of any means of es­cape that might of­fer, such as a float­ing spar or plank, in case the rag­ing wa­ters had not swal­lowed up ev­ery­thing when the ves­sel foundered.

Very of­ten writ­ings of this kind that are re­cov­ered from the sea state the lo­cal­ity in which the catas­tro­phe oc­curred; but in this nei­ther the lat­itude nor lon­gi­tude were men­tioned; nor was there any­thing to in­di­cate the near­est land. Hence one must con­clude that no one on board knew where the “Viking” was at the time of the dis­as­ter. Driv­en on, doubt­less, by a tem­pest of re­sist­less pow­er, the ves­sel must have been car­ried far out of her course, and the cloud­ed sky mak­ing a so­lar ob­ser­va­tion im­pos­si­ble, there had been no way of de­ter­min­ing the ship's where­abouts for sev­er­al days; so it was more than prob­able that no one would ev­er know whether it was near the shores of North Amer­ica or of Ice­land that the gal­lant crew had sunk to rise no more.

This was a cir­cum­stance cal­cu­lat­ed to de­stroy all hope, even in the bo­soms of the most san­guine.

With some clew, no mat­ter how vague, a search for the miss­ing ves­sel would have been pos­si­ble. A ship or steam­er could be dis­patched to the scene of the catas­tro­phe and per­haps find some trace of it. Be­sides, was it not quite pos­si­ble that one or more sur­vivors had suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing some point on the shores of the Arc­tic con­ti­nent, and that they were still there, home­less, and des­ti­tute, and hope­less­ly ex­iled from their na­tive land?

Such was the the­ory that grad­ual­ly as­sumed shape in Sylvius Hogg's mind--a the­ory that it would scarce­ly do to ad­vance to Joel and Hul­da, so painful would the dis­ap­point­ment prove if it should be with­out foun­da­tion.

“And though the writ­ing gives no clew to the scene of the catas­tro­phe,” he said to him­self, “we at least know where the bot­tle was picked up. This let­ter does not state, but they must know at the Naval De­part­ment; and is it not an in­di­ca­tion that might be used to ad­van­tage? By study­ing the di­rec­tion of the cur­rents and of the pre­vail­ing winds at the time of the ship­wreck might it not be pos­si­ble? I am cer­tain­ly go­ing to write again. Search must be made, no mat­ter how small the chances of suc­cess. No; I will nev­er desert poor Hul­da! And un­til I have pos­itive proofs of it I will nev­er cred­it the death of her be­trothed.”

Sylvius Hogg rea­soned thus; but at the same time he re­solved to say noth­ing about the mea­sures he in­tend­ed to adopt, or the search he in­tend­ed to urge on with all his in­flu­ence. Hul­da and her broth­er must know noth­ing about his writ­ing to Chris­tia­nia; more­over, he re­solved to post­pone in­def­inite­ly the de­par­ture which had been an­nounced for the next day, or rather he would leave in a few days, but on­ly for a trip to Bergen. There, he could learn from the Messrs. Help all the par­tic­ulars con­cern­ing the “Viking,” ask the opin­ion of the most ex­pe­ri­enced mariners, and de­cide up­on the way in which search could best be made.

In the mean­time, from in­for­ma­tion fur­nished by the Navy De­part­ment, the press of Chris­tia­nia, then that of Nor­way, Swe­den, and fi­nal­ly all Eu­rope, grad­ual­ly got hold of this sto­ry of a lot­tery tick­et trans­formed in­to an im­por­tant le­gal doc­ument. There was some­thing very touch­ing about this gift from a ship­wrecked mariner to his be­trothed.

The old­est of the Nor­we­gian jour­nals, the “Mor­gen-​Blad,” was the first to re­late the sto­ry of the “Viking” and Ole Kamp; and of the thir­ty-​sev­en oth­er pa­pers pub­lished in that coun­try at the time, not one failed to al­lude to it in touch­ing terms. The il­lus­trat­ed “Ny­heds­blad” pub­lished an ide­al pic­ture of the ship­wreck. There was the sink­ing “Viking,” with tat­tered sails and hull par­tial­ly de­stroyed, about to dis­ap­pear be­neath the waves. Ole stood in the bow throw­ing the bot­tle con­tain­ing his last mes­sage in­to the sea, at the same time com­mend­ing his soul to God. In a lu­mi­nous cloud in the dim dis­tance a wave de­posit­ed the bot­tle at the feet of his be­trothed. The whole pic­ture was up­on an en­larged rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a lot­tery tick­et bear­ing the num­ber 9672 in bold re­lief. An un­pre­tend­ing con­cep­tion, un­ques­tion­ably, but one that could hard­ly fail to be re­gard­ed as a mas­ter­piece in the land which still clings to leg­ends of the Undines and Valkyries. Then the sto­ry was re­pub­lished and com­ment­ed up­on in France and Eng­land, and even in the Unit­ed States. The sto­ry of Hul­da and Ole be­came fa­mil­iar to ev­ery one through the medi­um of pen­cil and pen. This young Nor­we­gian girl, with­out know­ing it, held a promi­nent place in the sym­pa­thy and es­teem of the pub­lic. The poor child lit­tle sus­pect­ed the in­ter­est she had aroused, how­ev­er; be­sides, noth­ing could have di­vert­ed her mind from the loss that en­grossed her ev­ery thought.

This be­ing the case, no one will be sur­prised at the ef­fect pro­duced up­on both con­ti­nents--an ef­fect eas­ily ex­plained when we re­mem­ber how prone we all are to su­per­sti­tion. A lot­tery tick­et so prov­iden­tial­ly res­cued from the waves could hard­ly fail to be the win­ning tick­et. Was it not mirac­ulous­ly des­ig­nat­ed as the win­ner of the cap­ital prize? Was it not worth a for­tune--the for­tune up­on which Ole Kamp had count­ed?

Con­se­quent­ly it is not sur­pris­ing that over­tures for the pur­chase of this tick­et came from all parts of the coun­try. At first, the prices of­fered were small, but they in­creased from day to day; and it was ev­ident that they would con­tin­ue to in­crease in pro­por­tion as the day of the draw­ing ap­proached.

These of­fers came not on­ly from dif­fer­ent parts of Scan­di­navia, which is a firm be­liev­er in the ac­tive in­ter­ven­tion of su­per­nat­ural pow­ers in all mun­dane mat­ters--but al­so from for­eign lands, and even from France.

Even the phleg­mat­ic En­glish grew ex­cit­ed over the mat­ter, and sub­se­quent­ly the Amer­icans, who are not prone to spend their mon­ey so un­prac­ti­cal­ly. A host of let­ters came to Dal, and the news­pa­pers did not fail to make men­tion of the large sums of­fered to the Hansen fam­ily. A sort of mi­nor stock ex­change seemed to have been es­tab­lished, in which val­ues were con­stant­ly chang­ing, but al­ways for the bet­ter.

Sev­er­al hun­dred marks were, in fact, of­fered for this tick­et, which had on­ly one chance in a mil­lion of win­ning the cap­ital prize. This was ab­surd, un­ques­tion­ably, but su­per­sti­tious peo­ple do not stop to rea­son; and as their imag­ina­tions be­came more and more ex­cit­ed, they were like­ly to bid much high­er.

This proved to be the case. One week af­ter the event the pa­pers an­nounced that the amounts of­fered for the tick­et ex­ceed­ed one thou­sand, fif­teen hun­dred and even two thou­sand marks. A res­ident of Manch­ester, Eng­land, had even of­fered one hun­dred pounds ster­ling, or two thou­sand five hun­dred marks; while an Amer­ican, and a Bosto­ni­an at that, an­nounced his will­ing­ness to give one thou­sand dol­lars for tick­et No. 9672 of the Chris­tia­nia Schools Lot­tery.

It is need­less to say that Hul­da trou­bled her­self very lit­tle about the mat­ter that was ex­cit­ing the pub­lic to such an ex­tent. She would not even read the let­ters that were ad­dressed to her on the sub­ject; but the pro­fes­sor in­sist­ed that she must not be left in ig­no­rance of these of­fers, as Ole Kamp had be­queathed his right and ti­tle in this tick­et to her.

Hul­da re­fused all these of­fers. This tick­et was the last let­ter of her be­trothed.

No one need sup­pose that this re­fusal was due to an ex­pec­ta­tion that the tick­et would win one of the prizes in the lot­tery. No. She saw in it on­ly the last farewell of her ship­wrecked lover--a me­men­to she wished to rev­er­ent­ly pre­serve. She cared noth­ing for a for­tune that Ole could not share with her. What could be more touch­ing than this wor­ship of a sou­venir?

On ap­pris­ing her of these dif­fer­ent of­fers, how­ev­er, nei­ther Sylvius Hogg nor Joel made any at­tempt to in­flu­ence Hul­da. She was to be guid­ed en­tire­ly by her own wish­es in the mat­ter. They knew now what her wish­es were.

Joel, more­over, ap­proved his sis­ter's de­ci­sion un­re­served­ly. Ole Kamp's tick­et must not be sold to any per­son at any price.

Sylvius Hogg went even fur­ther. He not on­ly ap­proved Hul­da's de­ci­sion, but he con­grat­ulat­ed her up­on it. Think of see­ing this tick­et sold and resold, pass­ing from hand to hand, trans­formed, as it were, in­to a piece of mer­chan­dise, un­til the time ap­point­ed for the draw­ing ar­rived, when it would very prob­ably be­come a worth­less scrap of pa­per?

And Sylvius Hogg went even fur­ther. Was it, per­haps, be­cause he was slight­ly su­per­sti­tious? No. Still, if Ole Kamp had been there, the pro­fes­sor would prob­ably have said to him:

“Keep your tick­et, my boy, keep it! First, your tick­et, and then you, your­self, were saved from the wreck. You had bet­ter wait and see what will come of it. One nev­er knows; no, one nev­er knows!”

And when Sylvius Hogg, pro­fes­sor of law, and; a mem­ber of the Stor­thing, felt in this way, one can hard­ly won­der at the in­fat­ua­tion of the pub­lic, nor that No. 9672 could be sold at an enor­mous pre­mi­um.

So in Dame Hansen's house­hold there was no one who protest­ed against the young girl's de­ci­sion--at least no one ex­cept the moth­er.

She was of­ten heard to cen­sure it, es­pe­cial­ly in Hul­da's ab­sence, a fact that caused poor Joel not a lit­tle mor­ti­fi­ca­tion and cha­grin, for he was very much afraid that she would not al­ways con­fine her­self to covert cen­sure, and that she would urge Hul­da to ac­cept one of the of­fers she had re­ceived.

“Five thou­sand marks for the tick­et!” she re­peat­ed again and again. “They of­fer five thou­sand marks for it!”

It was ev­ident that Dame Hansen saw noth­ing ei­ther pa­thet­ic or com­mend­able in her daugh­ter's re­fusal. She was think­ing on­ly of this large sum of five thou­sand marks. A sin­gle word from Hul­da would bring it in­to the fam­ily. She had no faith ei­ther in the ex­traor­di­nary val­ue of the tick­et, Nor­we­gian though she was; and to sac­ri­fice fire thou­sand marks for a mil­lionth chance of win­ning one hun­dred thou­sand was an idea too ab­surd to be en­ter­tained far a mo­ment by her cool and prac­ti­cal mind.

All su­per­sti­tion aside, it is un­de­ni­able that the sac­ri­fice of a cer­tain­ty, un­der such con­di­tions, was not an act of world­ly wis­dom; but as we said be­fore, the tick­et was not a lot­tery tick­et in Hul­da's eyes; it was Ole's last farewell, and it would have bro­ken her heart to part with it.

Nev­er­the­less, Dame Hansen cer­tain­ly dis­ap­proved her daugh­ter's re­solve. It was ev­ident, too, that her dis­sat­is­fac­tion was con­stant­ly in­creas­ing, and it seemed more than like­ly that at no very dis­tant day she would en­deav­or to make Hul­da change her de­ci­sion. In­deed, she had al­ready in­ti­mat­ed as much to Joel, who had prompt­ly tak­en his sis­ter's part.

Sylvius Hogg was, of course, kept in­formed of what was go­ing on. Such an at­tempt on the moth­er's part would on­ly be an­oth­er tri­al added to those Hul­da was al­ready obliged to en­dure, and he was anx­ious to avert it if pos­si­ble. Joel men­tioned the sub­ject to him some­times.

“Isn't my sis­ter right in re­fus­ing?” he asked. “And am I not jus­ti­fied in up­hold­ing her in her re­fusal?”

“Un­ques­tion­ably,” replied Sylvius Hogg. “And yet, from a math­emat­ical point of view, your moth­er is a mil­lion times right. But the sci­ence of math­emat­ics does not gov­ern ev­ery­thing in this world. Cal­cu­la­tion has noth­ing to do with the prompt­ings of the heart.”

Dur­ing the next two weeks they were obliged to watch Hul­da very close­ly, for the state of her health was such as to ex­cite se­ri­ous anx­iety. For­tu­nate­ly lov­ing care and at­ten­tion were not want­ing. At Sylvius Hogg's re­quest, the cel­ebrat­ed Dr. Bock, a per­son­al friend, came to Dal to see the young in­valid. He could on­ly pre­scribe rest, and qui­et of soul, if that were pos­si­ble; but the on­ly sure means of cur­ing her was Ole's re­turn, and this means God on­ly could pro­vide. Still, Sylvius Hogg was un­tir­ing in his ef­forts to con­sole the young girl. His words were ev­er words of hope, and strange as it may ap­pear, Sylvius Hogg did not de­spair.

Thir­teen days had now elapsed since the ar­rival of the tick­et for­ward­ed by the Navy De­part­ment. It was now the thir­teenth of June. A fort­night more, and the draw­ing of the lot­tery would take place with great pomp in the main hall of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chris­tia­nia.

On the morn­ing of the thir­ti­eth day of June Sylvius Hogg re­ceived an­oth­er let­ter from the Navy De­part­ment. This let­ter ad­vised him to con­fer with the mar­itime au­thor­ities of Bergen, and au­tho­rized him to im­me­di­ate­ly or­ga­nize an ex­pe­di­tion to search for the miss­ing “Viking.”

The pro­fes­sor did not want Joel or Hul­da to know what he in­tend­ed to do, so he mere­ly told them that he must leave them for a few days to at­tend to some busi­ness mat­ters.

“Pray do not desert us, Mis­ter Sylvius,” said the poor girl.

“Desert you--you, whom I re­gard as my own chil­dren!” replied Sylvius Hogg.

Joel of­fered to ac­com­pa­ny him, but not wish­ing him to know that he was go­ing to Bergen, the pro­fes­sor would on­ly al­low him to go as far as Moel. Be­sides, it would not do for Hul­da to be left alone with her moth­er. Af­ter be­ing con­fined to her bed sev­er­al days, she was now be­gin­ning to sit up a lit­tle, though she was still very weak and not able to leave her room.

At eleven o'clock the kar­iol was at the door of the inn, and af­ter bid­ding Hul­da good-​bye, the pro­fes­sor took his seat in the ve­hi­cle be­side Joel. In an­oth­er minute they had both dis­ap­peared be­hind a large clump of birch­es at the turn in the road.

That same evening Joel re­turned to Dal.

END OF FIRST HALF.