Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER XV.

Sylvius Hogg reached Dal on the evening of the fol­low­ing day. He did not say a word about his jour­ney, and no one knew that he had been to Bergen. As long as the search was pro­duc­tive of no re­sults he wished the Hansen fam­ily to re­main in ig­no­rance of it. Ev­ery let­ter or tele­gram, whether from Bergen or Chris­tia­nia, was to be ad­dressed to him, at the inn, where he in­tend­ed to await fur­ther de­vel­op­ments. Did he still hope? Yes, though it must be ad­mit­ted that he had some mis­giv­ings.

As soon as he re­turned the pro­fes­sor be­came sat­is­fied that some im­por­tant event had oc­curred in his ab­sence. The al­tered man­ner of Joel and Hul­da showed con­clu­sive­ly that an ex­pla­na­tion must have tak­en place be­tween their moth­er and them­selves. Had some new mis­for­tunes be­fall­en the Hansen house­hold?

All this of course trou­bled Sylvius Hogg great­ly. He felt such a pa­ter­nal af­fec­tion for the broth­er and sis­ter that he could not have been more fond of them if they had been his own chil­dren. How much he had missed them dur­ing his short ab­sence.

“They will tell me all by and by,” he said to him­self. “They will have to tell me all. Am I not a mem­ber of the fam­ily?”

Yes; Sylvius Hogg felt now that he had an un­doubt­ed right to be con­sult­ed in re­gard to ev­ery­thing con­nect­ed with the pri­vate life of his young friends, and to know why Joel and Hul­da seemed even more un­hap­py than at the time of his de­par­ture. The mys­tery was soon solved.

In fact both the young peo­ple were anx­ious to con­fide in the ex­cel­lent man whom they loved with a tru­ly fil­ial de­vo­tion, but they were wait­ing for him to ques­tion them. Dur­ing his ab­sence they had felt lone­ly and for­sak­en--the more so from the fact that Sylvius Hogg had not seen fit to tell them where he was go­ing. Nev­er had the hours seemed so long. It nev­er once oc­curred to them that the jour­ney was in any way con­nect­ed with a search for the “Viking,” and that Sylvius Hogg had con­cealed the fact from them in or­der to spare them ad­di­tion­al dis­ap­point­ment in case of fail­ure.

And now how much more nec­es­sary his pres­ence seemed to have be­come to them! How glad they were to see him, to lis­ten to his words of coun­sel and hear his kind and en­cour­ag­ing voice. But would they ev­er dare to tell him what had passed be­tween them and the Dram­men usurer, and how Dame Hansen had marred the prospects of her chil­dren? What would Sylvius Hogg say when he learned that the tick­et was no longer in Hul­da's pos­ses­sion, and when he heard that Dame Hansen had used it to free her­self from her in­ex­orable cred­itor?

He was sure to learn these facts, how­ev­er. Whether it was Sylvius Hogg or Hul­da that first broached the sub­ject, it would be hard to say, nor does it mat­ter much. This much is cer­tain, how­ev­er, the pro­fes­sor soon be­came thor­ough­ly ac­quaint­ed with the sit­ua­tion of af­fairs. He was told of the dan­ger that had threat­ened Dame Hansen and her chil­dren, and how the usurer would have driv­en them from their old home in a fort­night if the debt had not been paid by the sur­ren­der of the tick­et.

Sylvius Hogg lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly to this sad sto­ry.

“You should not have giv­en up the tick­et,” he cried, ve­he­ment­ly; “no, you should not have done it.”

“How could I help it, Mon­sieur Sylvius?” replied the poor girl, great­ly trou­bled.

“You could not, of course, and yet--Ah, if I had on­ly been here!”

And what would Pro­fes­sor Sylvius Hogg have done had he been there? He did not say, how­ev­er, but con­tin­ued:

“Yes, my dear Hul­da; yes, Joel, you did the best you could, un­der the cir­cum­stances. But what en­rages me al­most be­yond en­durance is the fact that this Sand­go­ist will prof­it great­ly, no doubt, by this ab­surd su­per­sti­tion on the part of the pub­lic. If poor Ole's tick­et should re­al­ly prove to be the lucky one this un­prin­ci­pled scoundrel will reap all the ben­efit. And yet, to sup­pose that this num­ber, 9672, will nec­es­sar­ily prove the lucky one, is sim­ply ridicu­lous and ab­surd. Still, I would not have giv­en up the tick­et, I think. Af­ter once re­fus­ing to sur­ren­der it to Sand­go­ist Hul­da would have done bet­ter to turn a deaf ear to her moth­er's en­treaties.”

The broth­er and sis­ter could find noth­ing to say in re­ply. In giv­ing the tick­et to Dame Hansen, Hul­da had been prompt­ed by a fil­ial sen­ti­ment that was cer­tain­ly to be com­mend­ed rather than cen­sured. The sac­ri­fice she had made was not one of more or less prob­able chance, but of Ole Kamp's last wish­es and of her last me­men­to of her lover.

But it was too late to think of this now. Sand­go­ist had the tick­et. It be­longed to him, and he would sell it to the high­est bid­der. A heart­less usurer would thus coin mon­ey out of the touch­ing farewell of the ship­wrecked mariner. Sylvius Hogg could not bear the thought. It was in­tol­er­able to him.

He re­solved to have a talk with Dame Hansen on the sub­ject that very day. This con­ver­sa­tion could ef­fect no change in the state of af­fairs, but it had be­come al­most nec­es­sary.

“So you think I did wrong, Mon­sieur Hogg?” she asked, af­ter al­low­ing the pro­fes­sor to say all he had to say on the sub­ject.

“Cer­tain­ly, Dame Hansen.”

“If you blame me for hav­ing en­gaged in rash spec­ula­tions, and for en­dan­ger­ing the for­tune of my chil­dren, you are per­fect­ly right; but if you blame me for hav­ing re­sort­ed to the means I did to free my­self, you are wrong. What have you to say in re­ply?”

“Noth­ing.”

“But se­ri­ous­ly, do you think that I ought to have re­fused the of­fer of Sand­go­ist, who re­al­ly of­fered fif­teen thou­sand marks for a tick­et that is prob­ably worth noth­ing; I ask you again, do you think I ought to have re­fused it?”

“Yes and no, Dame Hansen.”

“It can not be both yes and no, pro­fes­sor; it is no. Un­der dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, and if the fu­ture had ap­peared less threat­en­ing--though that was my own fault, I ad­mit--I should have up­held Hul­da in her re­fusal to part with the tick­et she had re­ceived from Ole Kamp. But when there was a cer­tain­ty of be­ing driv­en in a few days from the house in which my hus­band died, and in which my chil­dren first saw the light, I could not un­der­stand such a re­fusal, and you your­self, Mon­sieur Hogg, had you been in my place, would cer­tain­ly have act­ed as I did.”

“No, Dame Hansen, no!”

“What would you have done, then?”

“I would have done any­thing rather than sac­ri­fice a tick­et my daugh­ter had re­ceived un­der such cir­cum­stances.”

“Do these cir­cum­stances, in your opin­ion, en­hance the val­ue of the tick­et?”

“No one can say.”

“On the con­trary, ev­ery one does know. This tick­et is sim­ply one that has nine hun­dred and nine­ty-​nine thou­sand nine hun­dred and nine­ty-​nine chances of los­ing against one of win­ning. Do you con­sid­er it any more valu­able be­cause it was found in a bot­tle that was picked up at sea?”

Sylvius Hogg hard­ly knew what to say in re­ply to this straight­for­ward ques­tion, so he re­vert­ed to the sen­ti­men­tal side of the ques­tion by re­mark­ing:

“The sit­ua­tion now seems to be briefly as fol­lows: Ole Kamp, as the ship went down, be­queathed to Hul­da the sole earth­ly pos­ses­sion left him, with the re­quest that she should present it on the day of the draw­ing, pro­vid­ed, of course, that the tick­et reached her; and now this tick­et is no longer in Hul­da's pos­ses­sion.”

“If Ole Kamp had been here, he would not have hes­itat­ed to sur­ren­der his tick­et to Sand­go­ist,” replied Dame Hansen.

“That is quite pos­si­ble,” replied Sylvius Hogg; “but cer­tain­ly no oth­er per­son had a right to do it, and what will you say to him if he has not per­ished and if he should re­turn to-​mor­row, or this very day?”

“Ole will nev­er re­turn,” replied Dame Hansen, gloomi­ly. “Ole is dead, Mon­sieur Hogg, dead, be­yond a doubt.”

“You can not be sure of that, Dame Hansen,” ex­claimed the pro­fes­sor. “In fact, you know noth­ing at all about it. Care­ful search is be­ing made for some sur­vivor of the ship­wreck. It may prove suc­cess­ful; yes, even be­fore the time ap­point­ed for the draw­ing of this lot­tery. You have no right to say that Ole Kamp is dead, so long as we have no proof that he per­ished in the catas­tro­phe. The rea­son I speak with less ap­par­ent as­sur­ance be­fore your chil­dren is that I do not want to arouse hopes that may end in bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment. But to you, Dame Hansen, I can say what I re­al­ly think, and I can not, I will not be­lieve that Ole Kamp is dead! No, I will not be­lieve it!”

Find­ing her­self thus worsted, Dame Hansen ceased to ar­gue the ques­tion, and this Nor­we­gian, be­ing rather su­per­sti­tious in her se­cret heart, hung her head as if Ole Kamp was in­deed about to ap­pear be­fore her.

“At all events, be­fore part­ing with the tick­et,” con­tin­ued Sylvius Hogg, “there was one very sim­ple thing that you ne­glect­ed to do.”

“What?”

“You should first have ap­plied to your per­son­al friends or the friends of your fam­ily. They would not have re­fused to as­sist you, ei­ther by pur­chas­ing the mort­gage of Sand­go­ist, or by loan­ing you the mon­ey to pay it.”

“I have no friends of whom I could ask such a fa­vor.”

“Yes, you have, Dame Hansen. I know at least one per­son who would have done it with­out the slight­est hes­ita­tion.”

“And who is that, if you please?”

“Sylvius Hogg, mem­ber of the Stor­thing.”

Dame Hansen, too deeply moved to re­ply in words, bowed her thanks to the pro­fes­sor.

“But what's done can't be un­done, un­for­tu­nate­ly,” added Sylvius Hogg, “and I should be great­ly obliged to you, Dame Hansen, if you would re­frain from say­ing any­thing to your chil­dren about this con­ver­sa­tion.”

And the two sep­arat­ed.

The pro­fes­sor had re­sumed his for­mer habits, and his dai­ly walks as well. In com­pa­ny with Joel and Hul­da, he spent sev­er­al hours ev­ery day in vis­it­ing the points of in­ter­est in and about Dal--not go­ing too far, how­ev­er, for fear of weary­ing the young girl. Much of his time, too, was de­vot­ed to his ex­ten­sive cor­re­spon­dence. He wrote let­ter af­ter let­ter to Bergen and Chris­tia­nia, stim­ulat­ing the zeal all who were en­gaged in the good work of search­ing for the “Viking.” To find Ole seemed to be his sole aim in life now.

He even felt it his du­ty to again ab­sent him­self for twen­ty-​four hours, doubt­less for an ob­ject in some way con­nect­ed with the af­fair in which Dame Hansen's fam­ily was so deeply in­ter­est­ed; but, as be­fore, he main­tained ab­so­lute si­lence in re­gard to what he was do­ing or hav­ing done in this mat­ter.

In the mean­time Hul­da re­gained strength but slow­ly. The poor girl lived on­ly up­on the rec­ol­lec­tion of Ole; and her hope of see­ing him again grew fainter from day to day. It is true, she had near her the two be­ings she loved best in the world; and one of them nev­er ceased to en­cour­age her; but would that suf­fice? Was it not nec­es­sary to di­vert her mind at any cost? But how was her mind to be di­vert­ed from the gloomy thoughts that bound her, as it were, to the ship­wrecked “Viking?”

The 12th of Ju­ly came. The draw­ing of the Chris­tia­nia Schools Lot­tery was to take place in four days.

It is need­less to say that Sand­go­ist's pur­chase had come to the knowl­edge of the pub­lic. The pa­pers an­nounced that the fa­mous tick­et bear­ing the num­ber 9672 was now in the pos­ses­sion of M. Sand­go­ist, of Dram­men, and that this tick­et would be sold to the high­est bid­der; so, if M. Sand­go­ist was now the own­er of the afore­said tick­et, he must have pur­chased it for a round sum of Hul­da Hansen.

Of course this an­nounce­ment low­ered the young girl very de­cid­ed­ly in pub­lic es­ti­ma­tion. What! Hul­da Hansen had con­sent­ed to sell the tick­et be­long­ing to her lost lover? She had turned this last me­men­to of him in­to mon­ey?

But a time­ly para­graph that ap­peared in the “Mor­gen-​Blad” gave the read­ers a true ac­count of what had tak­en place. It de­scribed the re­al na­ture of Sand­go­ist's in­ter­fer­ence, and how the tick­et had come in­to his hands. And now it was up­on the Dram­men usurer that pub­lic odi­um fell; up­on the heart­less cred­itor who had not hes­itat­ed to take ad­van­tage of the mis­for­tunes of the Hansen fam­ily, and as if by com­mon con­sent the of­fers which had been made while Hul­da held the tick­et were not re­newed. The tick­et seemed to have lost its su­per­nat­ural val­ue since it had been de­filed by Sand­go­ist's touch, so that wor­thy had made but a bad bar­gain, af­ter all, and the fa­mous tick­et, No. 9672, ap­peared like­ly to be left on his hands.

It is need­less to say that nei­ther Hul­da nor Joel was aware of what had been said, and this was for­tu­nate, for it would have been very painful to them to be­come pub­licly mixed up in an af­fair which had as­sumed such a pure­ly spec­ula­tive char­ac­ter since it came in­to the hands of the usurer.

Late on the af­ter­noon of the 12th of Ju­ly, a let­ter ar­rived, ad­dressed to Pro­fes­sor Sylvius Hogg.

This mis­sive, which came from the Naval De­part­ment, con­tained an­oth­er which had been mailed at Chris­tiansand, a small town sit­uat­ed at the mouth of the Gulf of Chris­tia­nia. It could hard­ly have con­tained any news, how­ev­er, for Sylvius Hogg put it in his pock­et and said noth­ing to Joel or his sis­ter about its con­tents.

But when he bade them good-​night on re­tir­ing to his cham­ber, he re­marked:

“The draw­ing of the lot­tery is to take place in three days as you are, of course, aware, my chil­dren. You in­tend to be present, do you not?”

“What is the use, Mon­sieur Sylvius?” re­spond­ed Hul­da.

“But Ole wished his be­trothed to wit­ness it. In fact, he par­tic­ular­ly re­quest­ed it in the last lines he ev­er wrote, and I think his wish­es should be obeyed.”

“But the tick­et is no longer in Hul­da's pos­ses­sion,” re­marked Joel, “and we do not even know in­to whose hands it has passed.”

“Nev­er­the­less, I think you both ought to ac­com­pa­ny me to Chris­tia­nia to at­tend the draw­ing,” replied the pro­fes­sor.

“Do you re­al­ly de­sire it, Mon­sieur Sylvius?” asked the young girl.

“It is not I, my dear Hul­da, but Ole who de­sires it, and Ole's wish­es must be re­spect­ed.”

“Mon­sieur Sylvius is right, sis­ter,” replied Joel. “Yes; you must go. When do you in­tend to start, Mon­sieur Sylvius?”

“To-​mor­row, at day-​break, and may Saint Olaf pro­tect us!”