The first flush of autumn came upon the woods. Soon it would be three
years since Olga Brancka had driven thither, and her work had held good
and never been undone. Bela and Gela had grown tall and slender as the
young fir trees; and Bela often said to his brother: 'I was ten years
old on Easter Day. That is quite old. If ever I am to find him I am old
enough now.'
He had not forgotten. He never forgot. Every day he wearied his little
brain with thinking what he could do. Every night he asked Heaven to
help him. He had read a Bohemian ballad which had fascinated him; the
story of how, in the days of chivalry, Wratislaw, the son of Berka,
when but twelve years old, had made, all by himself and on foot,
a pilgrimage from Prague to Tartary, to release his brother from
captivity. Bela knew very well that the world had changed since then,
and that if some things were easier some were harder now than then. But
if Wratislaw had done so much at twelve, why should he, who was ten,
not do something?
He thought himself quite old. He had a big pony, and Folko was ridden
by his little brothers. He had been taught to shoot at a target and
a running mark; he had become skilful at climbing with crampons and
managing a boat. When he rode he had long boots that pulled up to his
knees. He could drive three ponies, harnessed in the Russian way, with
skill and surety. Perhaps, he thought, the Bohemian boy had not been
able to do half as much as this. The ballad spoke of him as a little
weakling, and yet he had found his way from Prague, in her dusky
plains, to burning Tartary.
Almost he was ready to set forth on a Quixotic search without any clue
to where his father dwelt, but his educated sense checked him with
the remembrance that, wide as the world was, it would be of no avail
to begin a harebrained pilgrimage with no fixed goal. Even Wratislaw,
who was his ideal, had been certain that his brother languished in
the Tartar tents before he had set his fair face to the southeast. So
he remained patient in his impatience, and strove with all his might
to perfect himself in all bodily exercises and manly habits, that he
might be the better fitted to go on his errand whenever he should have
any thread of guidance. No one guessed the resolves and the hopes
which fermented like new wine in his pretty golden-haired head. His
attendants thought each year that he grew gentler and more serious, and
his tutors found him at once more docile and more absent-minded. But no
one imagined that he was bent on any unusual enterprise.
His father had not been recognised by the groom who had accompanied his
mistress in the drive through the woods of the Reggen Thörl; and no
rumour of the near presence of Sabran had reached any of the household.
Greswold alone knew that amidst the solitudes of the avalanche and
the glacier, in the chill of the air where the eagle and the vulture
alone made their home, in a life of absolute isolation, asceticism, and
physical denial of every kind, the man who had sinned against her spent
his exile, in such self-chosen expiation as was possible to one who had
neither the faith nor the humility needful to make him seek refuge
and atonement in any religious service. He dwelt in the loneliness
of the ice-slopes, leading the life of a common hunter, shunning all
men, accepting each monotonous and joyless day as portion of his just
punishment; in the perils of winter on the mountains doing what he
could to save human or animal life; knowing no solace save such as
existed for him in the sense of being near all that he had lost, and
the power of watching the distant movements of his wife and children at
such rare hours as he ventured to approach the hills of Hohenszalras
and turn his telescope on the gardens of his lost home. A hunter or
two, a guide or two of the Umbal and the Trojerthal had his confidence,
but the loyalty which is the common virtue of all mountaineers made
them preserve it faithfully. For the rest, in these unfrequented
places, avoidance of all those who might have recognised him was easy;
he was clothed like the men of the hills, and lived like them in a
châlet, high perched on a ledge of rock at a great altitude in the wild
and almost inaccessible region of the Hintere Umbalthörl. Of the future
he never dared to think; he took each day as it came; the best he hoped
for was a mountaineer's death some hour or another, amidst the clear
serene blue ice, the everlasting snows.
When he had gone out from the chamber of his wife, banished and
accursed, all his spirit had died in him, and nothing had seemed clear
in his memory except that love which had been so insufficient to wash
out his sin. The world would no doubt have welcomed him; he was not
too old for its distractions and its ambitions to be still possible
for him; but he had no courage left to take them up, no energy to make
another future for himself. His whole life was consumed in a vain
regret, as vain a desire, as vain a penitence. Had he had the faith of
those men who dwelt under the willows of the Holy Isle he would have
joined them. But he had no belief; he had only a futile, heart-broken,
hopeless repentance, which availed him nothing and could atone for
nothing.
Perhaps, he thought, if she had known that, it might have changed her.
But he did not dare to approach her by any written appeal. It seemed
to him as if any words from him would only appear but added falsehood,
added insult. He never, even in his own thoughts, reproached her for
her separation from him. He recognised that no other path was open to
her. The pure daylight of her nature could find no mate in the dusk
and shadow of his own; the loyalty of truth could not unite with the
servitude and cowardice of falsehood. He knew it, and never rebelled
against his chastisement.
Whilst still it was dawn one morning, his young son, just awaking,
heard a pebble thrown at his window. He sprang out of bed and ran and
looked out. Old Otto stood below.
'My little lord,' he said softly; 'if you can come to me in the woods,
when you are dressed, I have something to tell you.'
'Of him?' cried Bela.
The huntsman made a sign of assent.
The child, excited to intense emotion, hardly knew how his servant
dressed him, or how he swallowed his breakfast. After their morning
meal he could always run in the woods, as he chose, before beginning
his studies, and he sped as fast as his feet could bear him to the
trysting-place.
'My lord, your father has been seen on the other side of Glöckner by my
underling, Fritz,' said Otto, gravely; 'and I have heard, too, that the
villagers have seen him in Pregratten. I made bold to tell you, Count
Bela, for I had given you my word.'
Bela's whole form shook with excitement.
'I knew if he had died I should have known it!' he said, with a hushed
ecstasy. 'Tell me more, tell me more, quick!'
'There is no more to tell, my little lord,' said Otto. 'Fritz will
swear that he saw your father, though there was a stretch of glaciers
and many fathoms of ice between them. He says there was no mistaking
the way he sighted his rifle and fired. And I have heard by gossip,
too, from the folks of the Hintere Umbalthörl that there can be no
manner of doubt of the fact that His Excellency has dwelt there, for a
time at least.'
Bela gave a deep breath.
'Then he lives, and I can find him!'
'Yes, he lives; the Lord be praised! 'said Otto.
When he went to the house the boy told no one his precious secret. He
studied ill, and was punished, but he did not heed it. His heart was
full of joy; his brain teemed with projects.
'I will go and bring him back!' he kept saying to himself; and no force
could hold his thoughts to his Homer or his Euclid.
He would tell no one, he resolved, not even Gela; and he would go
alone, all alone, as the Bohemian boy had gone.
'What ails Bela to-day? He is not like himself,' said his mother to
Greswold, who assured her he was well, but added that he was often
careless.
The child shut his secret up in his own breast, and though he longed
to tell Gela he did not. He had been tempted to confide in Otto, but
resisted even that desire, knowing that Otto was stern where duty
pointed, and had been always forbidden to let the little nobles wander
alone to the mountains. He had his father's power of reticence, his
mother's strength of self-control.
He knew what hill work was like. The elder boys often went climbing,
with their guides, on fine days from May to September, and had a
little tent which was set up for them at a fair altitude, whence
Greswold taught them to take observations and measurements. But the
mountaineering for the season was now over; it was now S. Michael's
Day, and avalanches fell and snow-storms had begun on the higher
slopes. He knew that if anyone saw him he would be stopped and taken
back. For that reason he said nothing to Gela, who could never be
persuaded to a disobedience; and he rose in the dark, before the hour
at which his attendant came to dress him, got his clothes on as best he
could, slipped the sword Vàsàrhely had given him in his belt, and took
his crampons and alpenstock in his hand.
He had kneeled and said his prayers, fervently though quickly.
'A soldier cannot pray _very_ long if he hear the trumpets sounding,'
he had thought, as he rose. He felt neither irresolution nor fear; he
was strong with ardour and an exalted sense of right-doing.
He had the little knapsack which, in the long forest walks with his
tutor, he was used to carry packed with simple food for a morning meal
when they halted under the pines. He had put some bread and cakes into
this overnight, and he had filled his little silver flask with milk,
as he had seen the flasks of the gentlemen filled with wine in those
grand days when the Kaiser and the Court had hunted with his father.
Thus equipped he managed to escape from the house by a side door, left
open by some of the under-servants, who had just risen. He knew the
quick way to reach the Glöckner slopes, for he had been taken there by
Otto to learn mountaineering, and for his age he climbed well. His eye
was sure, his step firm, and he knew not fear. He never thought of the
misery his absence might cause; he was absorbed in his self-imposed
mission.
'I will bring him back,' he thought, 'and then she will smile again.'
He had been trained in the lore of the high hills too well not to know
that it would take him several days to reach the Hintere Umbalthörl;
but he said to himself that this must be as it would. He would climb
on and on, sleep in any hut he could, and find what food he might. The
Bohemian boy had crossed many mountains and seas and deserts before he
had ransomed his brother.
It was a fine morning, with light pleasant winds. There was a clear
blue in the sky, though north-east there was a brown haze, such as
hunters fear, upon the hills.
'It will rain or snow to-morrow,' thought Bela, who had been made wise
in the signs of the weather. But even that prevision did not deter him;
he had his liberty and he meant to use it. He had been well trained to
all bodily exercises, and he could walk long and fast without fatigue.
His slender fair limbs were as strong as steel, and his health was
perfect. He knew all the tracks of the home-lying woods, and he wanted
no one to guide him. He got, with promptitude and address, out of sight
of the terraces and towers of Hohenszalras, and soon entered what was
called the Schwarzenwald, a dense pine-wood ascending abruptly the
mountain side from the gardens; the only place where the wildness of
the hills came in unbroken contact and close proximity to the lawns and
flowers of the south side of the schloss, the lower spurs of the Gross
Glöckner descending there so steep and stern that they enclosed the
parterres with a gigantic rampart of granite.
The contrast of the rose gardens with these huge overhanging heights
had always so pleased the tastes of the Szalras châtelaines, that they
had never allowed any attempts to be made to change or modify the
savage grandeur and sombre wilds of the black wood.
He was already a trained pedestrian, and he covered five miles without
pausing to breathe himself. Then he thought he had come far enough
to make it safe to pause and eat. He drank his milk and opened his
knapsack. There was turf still about him, and a few trees, but he had
come into the rocky region. Huge walls of red and grey marbles leaned
over him; white limestone crags faced him. Precipices, black with pines
and firs, shelved downward. He was still on his mother's land, but in a
part unknown to him.
Once rested, he climbed up manfully, straining his little velvet
breeches and soaking his silver-buckled shoes in the wet moss as he
went; for in the Schwarzenwald regular paths soon ceased. There was
the barest track visible, made by sheep, and pushing its upward way
under branches, over boulders, and through wimpling burns. It was the
loneliest part of all the woods and hills; descending as it did to
the rose gardens of the burg, the hunters and shepherds seldom passed
through it. Steep and solitary, crowned with bare rocks, and leading
only to the glacier slopes, few steps ever went over its short grass
save those of woodland animals and of shepherds' flocks. At this time
of the year even the latter were not near. They had been already
brought down to their stables from the green stretches of pasture
between the rocks. Bela met no one; not even one of his own peasantry.
He climbed and climbed uninterrupted, at first enjoying his solitude
rapturously, his triumph boisterously, and then going on more solemnly,
being a little awed by the sense of utter silence round him, in which
no sound was heard except of rippling water, of blowing boughs, and
afar off some faint tinkle of a church bell from a distant hamlet.
His spirits were exalted and full of enthusiasm. Joined to his boldness
and ardour he had the German love of the mystical and marvellous. All
the vast white range of the Glöckner to him was as a fairyland opening
on enchanted empires all his own. All the forenoon he was happy.
His brain, was busy with many pictures as he went. He saw his search
successful and his father found; he saw his happy return, and the
crowd of the glad household which would flock to meet his steps; he
thought how he would kneel down at her feet, and never rise until his
prayer should be heard, and his mother smile again; he thought how he
would cry out to her, 'Oh, mother, mother! I have brought him home!'
and how she would look, and the light and the warmth come back into
her face. It was so little to do--only to climb amidst these kindly
familiar mountains that had been always above him and around him since
first his eyes had opened. Wratislaw had gone over lands, and seas, and
deserts, and braved the jaws of lions, and the steel of foemen, and the
dragon's breath of the hot sand wind; he himself had so little to do;
only to climb some rough uneven ground, some green steep pastures, some
smooth fields of ice. He felt sad to think it was such a little thing.
Far down below he could hear the great bells of the burg chiming and
clanging, and he knew that they were giving the alarm for him; he saw
men small as mice grouping together here, and running apart there; he
knew they were coming out to search for him. He resolved to be very
wary. He had got so long a start that he was high on the hills ere he
heard the alarm-bells ring. He knew that he must avoid being seen
by anyone he met, or, known as he was to the whole country-side, his
liberty would soon be at an end. But the huts of the cattle-keepers
were empty, and the chances of meeting a mountaineer were few. Hundreds
of men might come upward in search of him, and yet miss him amidst
those endless walls of stone, those innumerable peaks and paths and
precipices, each one the fellow of the other.
He climbed the grassy slopes, the steep stone ways, as he had learned
to do with Otto, and though he was still for from the sides of Glöckner
he was yet soon on very high ground. A great mountain, green at the
base, snow-covered half the way down, frowned above him; it was but one
of the spurs of the Glöcknerwand, but he believed it to be the king of
the Austrian Alps itself. He met no one; the mountains were solitary;
the first breath of autumn had scared the cattle-keepers downward
with their flocks and herds. Sometimes, very far off, he saw a lonely
figure, a pedlar, or a hunter, or a shepherd, or some _alm_ still
tenanted by its flock, but they were mere specks on the immensity of
the glacier slopes and the domes of snow. The solitude enchanted him at
first; he had never been alone before. He drank from a stream, ate more
bread, and held on firmly and fearlessly. The thought that his father
was there beyond him, amidst those dazzling peaks, those lowering
clouds, seemed to shoe his little feet with fire. He felt weaker, for
his bread had nourished him but little, and he had not found a hut of
any kind as he had expected to do. But he toiled on, the slope of the
same mountain always facing him, always seeming to recede and to grow
higher and higher the further and further he went.
The wall of granite which he was on, nine miles or more above and
beyond his home, was known as the Adler Spitze. He had been near
it in other days, but he did not recognise it now; all these stern
slopes and steeps, all these domes and roof-like ridges of snow and
ice, so resemble each other that a longer apprenticeship to the hills
than his had been is needed to distinguish them one from another. The
Adler Spitze was a dangerous and seldom traversed peak; its sides were
bristling with jagged rocks, and its chasms were many and deep. More
than one death had been caused by it in late years, and near its summit
his mother, had caused to be erected a refuge, one of the highest of
the district, where a keeper was forever on the watch for belated
travellers. These were, however, very few, for the mountain had gained
a bad name amongst the hunters and pedlars and muleteers who alone
traversed these hills, and was left almost entirely to the birds of
prey, which were numerous there and had given it its name.
When the pine-woods ceased, and there was only around him mere naked
rock, with a little moss growing on it here and there, Bela knew
that he had come very high indeed. And he had his wish: he was quite
alone. There was nothing to be seen here except the dusky forest,
shelving downward, and vast slopes of naked grey stone, with large
loose rocks scattered over them, as if giants had been playing there at
pitch-and-toss. There was too much mist in the north and west, which
faced him, for the opposite mountains to be seen, for it was still
early in the day. He did not now feel the joy and excitement he had
expected. He had climbed to the glacier region indeed, but the scene
around was dreary, and the vast expanse of vapour surrounding him
looked chill and melancholy.
In the excitement and exultation of his thoughts he had forgotten
many things which he knew very well, trained to the hills as he was;
he had forgotten that it might rain or snow before he reached any
halting-place, that fogs came on at that season with fatal suddenness,
that if the sun were obscured the cold would soon become great, that
if a mist came down he would be unable to find any road, and that men
had been often killed on those heights who had known every inch of the
hills.
Something of his buoyancy and certainty of success began to pale and
grow dull as the isolation lost its sense of novelty, and that intense
silence of the glacier world, which is at all times so solemn, began to
strike awe into his intrepid soul. He had often been as high, but there
had been always on his ear his brother's voice, and his guide's laugh,
and the merry sounds of the men chattering together as they climbed.
Now there was no sound anywhere, save now and then a splitting cracking
noise, which he knew was ice giving way under the noon-day heat of
the sun. 'It must be just as still as this in the grave,' he thought,
with a chill in his warm eager leaping young blood. A little tuft of
edelweiss growing in a crevice, and an _alpenlerche_ winging its way
through the blue air, seemed to him like friends.
He wished now that Gela were with him.
'But it would have been of no use to ask him,' he thought sadly. 'He
never will disobey, even to make good come of it.'
A white mist had settled over all the lower world, one of the autumn
fogs which come from the lower clouds enwrapped all the lakes and
pastures and forests of Hohenszalras. Nothing could better baffle and
distract his pursuers; perplexed and blinded, they would be wholly at
a loss to trace his steps. It did not occur to him that the fog on
the lower lands might mean also storm and snow, and the darkness and
dampness of ice-cold vapours, in the upper air where he was.
It had become rough, hard, toilsome work; he was bruised, and almost
lame, and very tired. But the spirit in him was not crushed; he kept
always thinking: 'If it did not hurt, it would be nothing to do it.'
He had now got above all grass; the ground was loose shingle where it
was not bare granite, limestone, or marble, on all of which it was
difficult to keep a hold. There was snow not very far above him. The
air here was intensely cold. He had not thought to bring any furs
with him. His limbs were sorely cramped, his feet began to feel numb,
his fingers were so chilled he could hardly grip his alpenstock; the
hard slopes gave scarcely any footing to his climbing-irons; there
were clouds about him enveloping him, freezing him in their icy mist.
He began to think piteously of his brother, of his home, and of the
warm-cushioned nooks by the study fire, but he would not give in; he
toiled on, cutting and hurting his hands and knees as he groped on his
upward way. He reminded himself of Wratislaw, of Cassabianca, and all
the boy-heroes he had ever read of; he would not yield in endurance to
any one of them.
But, looking up, he knew by the colour of the sky that it was about to
snow; the heavens were of a leaden uniform grey, and seemed to meet
and touch the mountain. Then Bela knew that in all likelihood he would
never see Gela or his home again.
He choked down the sob that rose in his throat, and tried to think
what he could do to save himself. The ascent was now so steep that he
could make no upward way, and could barely keep himself from sliding
downwards. He caught at a projecting boulder and pulled himself with
great effort up on to it; there he could sit in a cramped position and
take breath. When he looked down he saw no forests, no land, no rocks,
nothing but a sea of fog, which had gathered thick and grey beneath
him. In autumn and spring the mountain weather changes in ten minutes
from fair to foul.
The odd stupor that comes from long exposure at a great altitude in
cold and vapour was stealing over him. Strange noises sounded in his
ears, and his feet and hands tingled. He began to fear that he should
get no further on his way, and he had not listened so often to the
tales told by huntsmen without knowing clearly enough the dangers
which await those who are out on the mountain side in bad weather when
daylight goes.
As he sat there, gazing dizzily into the ocean of vapour below him,
and upward to the huge walls of granite and of snow, he saw coming
and descending towards him from out the clouds a huge dark bird; the
immense wings seemed wide as heaven itself as it circled and swept the
air.
Bela's heart stood still: it was a male eagle, a golden eagle, and he
knew it.
The child's aching eyes watched the monarch of the upper air with a
horrible fascination. It looked black as night against the steely sky,
the snow-covered peaks.
He sat erect, and cried aloud to it in half delirious indignant
reproof. 'Oh, you great bird! you are treacherous, you are thankless!
_We_ have spared you and yours always, and now you will kill me! Oh,
do you not hear? The Szalras have always spared you! Do you not hear?'
But the shouts of his young voice died away against the granite walls
around him, and the king-bird paused not, but came nearer, and nearer,
and nearer.
It circled round and round, and each circle narrowed, till it was
poised immediately above his head, motionless, balancing itself upon
its outstretched pinions. He could see its eyes bent on him, see the
giant claws drawn up against its belly, see the hooked yellow beak.
The eagle was lord of the air, and he had intruded on its royalty: in
another moment he felt that it would descend on him and bear him off in
its talons or batter him to death with the blows of its wings. He drew
his little sword and waited for it; his eyes did not shrink, his body
did not cower; he looked upward with his toy-blade drawn in as true a
courage as that of Leonidas.
'If only I could take him home once--once--I would not mind dying here
afterwards,' he thought, in his dreamy exultation; '_Gott und mein
Schwert!_' he muttered, and waited still, calmly. Yet to die with his
errand undone--that seemed cruel.
The huge dark mass balanced itself one moment, more, then measuring its
prey rushed through the air towards him. But, ere it had seized him,
a shot flashed through the shadows, and rang through the silence; the
bird dropped dead in a ring of blood on the naked stone of the mountain
side.
Bela sprang up, and tottering on the slippery shelving rock threw his
arms outward with a loud cry.
'I came to find you!' he shouted, in his rapturous joy; then cold and
fatigue and past terror conquered him. He swooned at his father's feet.
Sabran had not known that it was his son whom he saved. He had seen
a child menaced by a bird of prey, and so had fired. When the boy
staggered to him with that cry of welcome, he was for the moment
stunned with amazement and gratitude and inexpressible emotion; the
next he raised the little brave body in his arms.
'Oh! tell me where your mother kissed you last, that I may set my lips
there!' he murmured to the child: but Bela heard not.
He was cold, inanimate, and senseless. He had gained his goal, but he
had no sight or sense to know it. His father looked around him with
terror for his sake. The snow had begun to fall, the darkness was
deepening, the mists were creeping upward; he, who for three years had
dwelt a mountaineer amidst these mountains, knew the danger of being
belated amidst them in autumn, when, at a stroke, autumn became winter;
sometimes in a single night. He himself had his dwelling far from there
upon the Isel water, under the Umbal glacier. If he had to carry the
boy it would be useless to dream of reaching the rude place which he
had made his home: the weight of a tall child of ten years old is no
light burden, and he knew that even if Bela regained his consciousness
he would be incapable of exertion in the cold, which would intensify
with every hour. But he wasted no moments in hesitation. He knew what
the white fall of those softly-descending feathers from above, what
the darkness and wetness of the dense fog down below, meant, out on
the spurs of Glöckner after sunset. Lives were lost here every year;
herds that had stayed on the Alps too late were surprised and destroyed
by early snow-storms; pedlars and carriers were belated, and sent to
a last sleep by that sudden plunge of autumn into frost. He knew his
way inch by inch, and he knew that there was, some mile or so beyond
him, the Wandahutte, erected in a dangerous pass by his wife, as a
thanksgiving in the first months of their marriage. There he would find
a rude bed, food, wine, and shelter for the night. He set himself to
reach it.
It was hard to climb with the child, held by one arm, and thrown across
one shoulder, as shepherds throw a disabled lamb. His other hand
gripped his alpenstock; he had left his rifle under a ledge of rock, as
a useless load. He had stripped off the hunter's jacket that he wore,
and wrapped it round Bela, whose body and limbs felt frozen. Down
below in the valleys fruit trees had still their plums and pears, and
asters and dahlias still flowered, but at this elevation the cold was
piercing and the snow froze as it fell.
A high wind also had risen, as the day declined, and blew the white
powder of the snow in whirling clouds: the terrible _tourmente_ of
the Alps which every traveller dreads. In the confusion of it he knew
that he might walk round and round on the same road all night, making
no progress. Soon it grew dark, though not quite four o'clock. He had
no light with him, for he had not intended to be out at night; he had
but come thither, as he often came, to see the distant gleam of the
Szalrassee, the far-off outline of the Hohenszalrasburg. He had been
reascending and returning when he had seen a child menaced by an eagle,
and had fired. Had he been by himself he would have found the hut
speedily, but weighted with the burden of Bela's inert body he made
little way, and staggered often on the slippery frozen steep. He had no
hands free to wield his hatchet and cut his way by steps over the ice
which had formed in all the fissures of the rocks.
The mountains had been his only friends in his exile. He had returned
to them, he had dwelt amongst them, he had borne his sorrows through
their help, and strengthened himself with their strength. But they
menaced him sorely now. For himself he cared not, but his heart ached
for the child, whose courage and affection had brought him thither to
meet his death.
'My poor Bela!' he murmured, as the boy's fair head hung over his
shoulder, 'why did you come to me? I give you nothing but evil. Safety,
comfort, happiness, honour, all come from _her._'
The whole heavens seemed to open, so dense a storm of snow now poured
upon him. There were strange deep noises ever and again, as from the
very bowels of the hills; a thousand times had he rejoiced to match
his strength against the mountains and to conquer, but now they were
his masters. All around him were the bastions and walls and domes of
the great ice peaks; the huge glaciers hung above like frozen seas
suspended; he could not behold them but he felt their presence and
their awe.
'The snow is in my blood and my blood is yours, and now it claims us,'
he muttered to the senseless ear of the child. He and the child had
loved the snow, met it with welcome, sported with it in triumph; and
now it killed them. They would lie down in it, and be one with it for
ever.
But although these fancies drifted in his brain, he strove with all his
might to keep in movement, to ascend ever in the easterly direction of
the refuge which he sought to gain. So far as he could, weighted with
his burden and blinded by the darkness, he continued to climb, gripping
the hard slopes with his feet and his alpenstock. He had given his coat
to the child; the cold made every vein in his own body numb; his limbs
pricked and seemed to swell; he had only his woollen shirt, above his
linen one, and his velvet breeches between him and the frozen air, that
could slay a hundred sheep massed together in their warmth and wool.
He knew that the hut was but a mile, or little more, from the place
where he had shot the eagle; but half a mile in the snowstorm and the
darkness was longer than forty miles in sunshine and fair weather. He
could not be even sure that he went aright; he could see nothing; the
sky was covered with the low dense clouds; he could only guess. All
the slender signs and landmarks, that would even in mere twilight have
served to guide his steps, were now hidden. A thick woolly impenetrable
gloom enshrouded him; he felt as though he were muffled and suffocated
by it, and the fatal drowsiness--the fatal desire to lie down and be
at rest--with which frost kills, stole on him.
With all the manhood in him he resisted it for the child's sake.
He had been climbing and wandering three short hours only, and he
had believed that it was midnight at the least. Bela still hung like
a lifeless thing over his shoulder, but he felt that his limbs were
warmer, and his heart beat feebly, but with regularity.
'God grant me power to save him, for his mother's sake,' thought
Sabran; 'then there may come what will.'
He struggled anew against the mortal sleepiness, the increasing
numbness, that grew upon himself. Suddenly, as he turned, without
knowing it, the corner of a wall of rock he saw a starry light. He knew
that it was the lamp of the refuge which, by his wife's command, was
lit at twilight every evening the whole year round. It was now but a
few roods off; he could see even the outline of the cabin itself, black
against its background of snow. But he had taken the wrong path to it.
Between him and it there yawned a wide crevasse in the glacier on which
he now stood.
He shouted loud, but the wind was louder than his voice. The keeper in
the refuge could not hear. He paused doubtfully. To retrace his steps
and seek the right path would be certain destruction; it would take him
many miles about, and there was no chance even in the darkness that he
would ever find it; his strength, too, was failing him, and the child
was still unconscious. There was but one way of escape, to leap the
fissure. It was wider than any man could be sure to clear, and if he
fell within it he would fall into jagged ice a thousand fathoms down.
By daylight he had often looked down into its awful depths, blue in
their darkness, set with jagged teeth of ice like a trap's jaws.
The leap might be death or life.
He hesitated a few instants, then drew quite close to the edge, and
cast aside his pole, for the chasm was too wide for that to help him,
and he needed both hands free to hold the boy more firmly. The lamp
from the hut shed light enough to guide him; the snow fell fast, the
wind was violent. He paused another moment on the brink, drew the child
closer to him and clasped him with both arms; then, gathering all his
force into his limbs, he leaped.
He cleared the fissure, but staggered on the slippery ice beyond. He
fell heavily, but still held his son so that Bela fell uppermost and
dropped upon him.
Crushed by his weight, Sabran sank at full length on the white crystal
ground; alone he would have leaped as surely as the chamois.
The shock awoke Bela from his trance; he opened his blue eyes giddily.
'It is you!' he murmured feebly, as he felt himself lying on his
father's breast.
'It is I!' said Sabran. 'My child, if you can move, try and creep to
that hut and call. I cannot.'
The child, without a sound, trembling sorely, and with a sense of
confusion making his head dizzy, obeyed, drew himself slowly up, and
dragged his tired, aching, cramped limbs over the snow.
'You are brave,' murmured his father, whose eyes followed him. 'You are
your mother's son.'
Bela reached the door of the hut and beat on it with his little frozen
hands, and then fell down against it.
'It is I--Count Bela!' he managed to cry aloud. 'Come to my father;
quick!'
The door was flung aside, and the keepers of the hut rushed out at the
first cry. They had been asleep. They were old jägers, past the work
of the forests, but still strong. Having lighted the beacon without,
they had drunk a little wine, and chattered, and then dosed. Terrified
at their own negligence and at the sight of their lady's son, they
staggered out into the night, and together they bore the body of Sabran
into the refuge. He was unable to rise.
'You cannot move!' sobbed the child, raining kisses on his hands.
'I am stiff from the cold; nothing more,' said his father, faintly.
Then he looked at the men.
'One of you, if it be possible, go to the Burg. Tell the Countess von
Szalras that her son is safe. You need not speak of me. Bring the
physician here when it is morning; but say nothing of me to-night. Give
me a little of your wine----'
His lips were blue, he felt faint; in his own heart he said to himself,
'I am hurt unto death.'
Bela had thrown his arms about him, and, trembling like a leaf, clung
there and sobbed aloud deliriously.
'You are hurt, you are hurt, and all for me!' he sobbed, as he saw his
father placed on the truckle bed set aside for any belated wanderer on
the hills.
Sabran smiled on him.
'My child, do not grieve so; it is nothing; a mere momentary wrench;
do not even think of it. No, no! I am not in pain.'
The wine revived him, and restored his strength, and he sought to
conceal his injury for the boy's sake.
'Warm some of this wine and give it to my son,' he said to the keeper
of the hut; 'then undress him, wrap him warmly, and make him sleep
before the fire.'
'You are hurt, you are ill!' moaned Bela. 'I came to find you to take
you back. Our mother has never been the same;--she has never smiled----'
'Hush!' said Sabran, almost sternly. 'Do not speak of your mother
before these men, her servants. You came to seek me, my poor little
boy? That was good of you, and it was good to remember me. It is three
years----'
Bela clung to him and put his lips to his father's ear, that the men
might not hear.
'The others have always prayed for you,' he murmured, 'because we were
all told. But me, I have loved you always. I have never thought of
anything else. And I have tried to be good, oh! I _have_ tried!'
A great suffering came on his father's face as he heard the innocent
words, and a great tenderness.
'When I am dead, as I shall be so soon, will he remember, too?' he
thought.
Aloud he said:
'My child, it is very sweet to me to hear your voice again. But if you
love me now, obey me. You will have fever and ague if you do not drink
some warm wine, let yourself be undressed, and lie down before the
fire. Do not be afraid. You will see me when you awake. I shall not
stir.'
He thought as he spoke:
'No, I shall never stir again; they will bear me away to my grave, that
is all. I am like a felled tree. All is over. Well, perchance, so best:
when I am dead she may forgive--she may love the children.'
When at last Bela, sobbing piteously, had reluctantly obeyed, and
when, despite all his struggles, nature, frozen, weary, and worn out,
compelled him to close his eager eyes in heavy dreamless slumber,
Sabran with a glance called the keeper to him.
'Now the child sleeps,' he said, 'get my clothes off me, if you can.
Touch me gently. I think my back is broken.'