shaped bell-like at the break of day. The open valley here closed in
until it became but a tremendous canon; the towering heights were
uplifted as the spires of a Gargantuan cathedral; the road itself seemed
to disappear into the very bowels of the rock. Upon the right hand,
what would have been a roaring torrent in the spring was but a runnel
cut in the cliff's face; upon their left hand was the abyss whose black
depths no eye could fathom. Here no living thing stirred--there was no
sound but that of the water dripping; the very bridge should have been
built for fabled demons of the Simplon and not for human travellers.
They passed on by the seventh refuge, and set out across the dreary
tableland, beyond which lay the village of Simplon itself. They had
out-distanced other travellers, and were alone upon this waste, which
breaks into the hills as an oasis whose icy mirage mocks the wayfarer.
Here, for the first time, they perceived the effects of last night's
storm: the profound drifts; the scarred rocks--even relics of the
pilgrims who had dared the journey. A little farther on, and they
entered the village, and heard the warning that the road to the Hospice
was unsafe. No sleighs would be allowed to pass: there had been
accidents upon the road, and the snow was not yet cleared. Some hours
must intervene before permission could be given, they said, but Benny
heard them with scorn, for he was determined to make the Hospice, and to
hear the abbe's news, cost him what it might. When he had talked a
little way with one of the soldiers at the inn, it appeared that nothing
would be said to those who cared to set out on foot, and this he did
immediately, instructing Bajazet to follow him directly the road was
open that they might continue the journey to Brigue.
To Brigue--was that his destination? Lily, he remembered, should be at
Sierre; it was even possible that her husband had joined her there, and
that they would leave for England by the express to-night. He himself
would follow after, but not for many weeks. The triumphs which awaited
him in England had ceased to interest him. He had lost, as it were, in
an hour the ambitions which had sustained him through the years, and the
inspiration by which they had been gratified. It would be well enough
to think of his future when all this were over, and he knew the best or
the worst of it. The brain refusing to contemplate any other issue, it
brought him back to the starting-point: would he be in time to save
Delayne, or was the gendarme, Philip, already avenged?
He pressed on over a barren road which has been likened to a waterless
lake in the hollow of the mountains. The snow lay heavy and the walking
was difficult. By here and there he passed wayfarers coming down from
the Hospice, but telling ever the same story of hardship and distress.
When, at length, he espied the monastery buildings, it was at a moment
when an avalanche crashed down on the road before him, and its thunders
echoed in the heights with the booming of a thousand cannon. Such
appalling sounds affrighted him beyond all reason, for he knew little of
Switzerland in the winter, save what Andana had taught him. Grimly and
with satisfaction, he remembered how little all this terror of the hills
had meant to him last night, and how little it would mean to the men of
to-morrow. Give him his ship, and he would be but a speck above these
imprisoning peaks--as free as an eagle, and as kingly. To go as he must
go--battling with the snow and often almost conquered by it, was a
humiliation his genius derided. But it was in keeping with the truth of
the quest; and presently, when a second avalanche thundered down, and
the snow sprayed above a gallery as foam upon a seashore, he shuddered
at its reality and wondered if his courage were equal to the ordeal.
He was but a quarter of a mile from the gate of the Hospice by this
time, and he perceived that those who had gone before him here deserted
the pass itself and went downward a little way toward the abyss. So many
feet had trodden out a path that prudence bade him take it. Striking
out boldly, he found himself presently in a magic sea whose billows rose
above his head but never engulfed him. At this time the monastery
disappeared from his view entirely; the landmarks by which he might have
guided himself to its doors vanished to give place to this monstrous and
unbroken curtain of the snow. He had the sense of being lost beyond
hope, of being a man adrift upon an ocean whose waters were white with
an icy foam. All idea of direction was blotted out immediately in this
blinding waste. He found the path and lost it ten times in as many
minutes, and then fell to bitter self-reproach because he had deserted
the high road. Vain lament--that desertion was his salvation!
A great dog came battling through the snow, and, anon, a monk with a
cassock tucked up to his waist, and skis upon his feet. He was quite a
youth, and he laughed and nodded to the stranger as one who would say:
"All is well; we knew you were coming to us." At his direction Benny
turned up the hillside again, and there he found the rope by which
travellers pull themselves up to the gates of the Hospice. They were
now but fifty yards from its door, and he could hear a bell calling the
priests to terce. The monk, in his turn, pointed to the high road, and
to the mountains of snow which rested upon its galleries.
"You were wise to come as you did," he said. "Many lose their lives up
there; three have done so this week, Monsieur."
No answer was made, and they entered the monastery. The bell still
tolled, and the brethren were crossing the court toward the chapel. The
Englishman, however, was conducted immediately to the guest hall, where
a great fire blazed and a table was spread. The monk had already told
him that the Abbe Villari was at the Hospice, and the desire to see him
brooked no control. Benny had almost forgotten where he was; the events
of the night and the journey of the day were as nothing when the abbe at
last entered the room and greeted him with hand uplifted and a hushed
word upon his lips.
"Yes, yes, I had expected you," he said, nodding his head slowly while
he spoke. "It was natural that you should not have heard. We found him
lying just above the seventh shelter. He was quite dead; he had been
dead for some hours."
Benny drew a step nearer, as though afraid of the sound of his voice.
"You found him--are you speaking of Luton Delayne?"
The abbe looked bewildered.
"Of whom, then? They would have kept him at Iselle, but he would not
hear reason. He tried to cross on foot at the height of the storm. I
had an idea that it might be so. Yes, yes, the Almighty God made this
known to me, and so I came."
And then he said, turning away:
"She will be here this afternoon--I have spoken to her myself; she is
now upon her way from Sierre."
There was no response. Benny stood at the window and looked down the
valley as though fearing to see her carriage already upon the high road.
*CHAPTER XXVII*
*BENNY SETS OUT FOR ENGLAND*
He left the hospice at three o'clock, while it was yet light, and the
journey to Brigue could be made in safety.
He had not spoken to her, but he knew that she was then in the chapel
where the dead lie, and that she was aware of his presence. An instinct
told him that it were better they should not meet in such a house of
shadows. He had already determined to set out for England that night,
and to think of Switzerland no more. In his own country he would find
the place and the hour.
Of the future, his ideas were vague and indefinable. A call of ambition
had returned in the interlude of reckoning, and found him resolute in
response. A new world opened to his vision, a world which should
recognise his genius and bid him profit by it. he would go to England
this night and make himself known to those who would honour him.
Thereafter strenuous days must follow, and the reaping of the harvest.
He was as one whose life's task began upon a foundation of success; the
stones of whose house were already hewn. In England he would come to
his own. They waited for him impatiently there.
Just for an instant, as he crossed the courtyard, he saw her kneeling
before the altar, her head bent in prayer and all her figure shrouded in
the gloom. A dim light of tapers flickered in the little building and
stood as symbols of the woe it harboured. She did not hear his step
upon the stone, and he passed by unnoticed. But that was not the vision
he carried with him upon his journey, nor the face the clear heaven
showed him when the gate was closed and he set upon his journey.
It was growing dark then, and twilight had already come down upon the
pass. The night fell still with a wonderful heaven of stars. He drove
on in silence, saying no word to the man which did not bid him hasten.
THE END.
Printed by Cassell and Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.