A CHAMOIS HUNTER
"This is perfectly appalling!" groaned the unfortunate lady who
passed, for this adventure, under the name of Miss Manchester.
"Perfectly glorious!" amended her companion.
The elder lady pressed Baedeker to her bosom, and sat down, with some
abruptness. "I shall have to stop here," she panted, "all the rest of
my life, and have my meals and my night things sent up. I'm very
sorry. But I'm certain I shall never be able to go back."
"Don't be absurd, my poor dear; we're absolutely safe," said Virginia.
"I may be a selfish wretch, but I wouldn't for the world have brought
you into danger. You needn't go down yet. Let's explore a little
further. It's easier than turning back. Surely you can go on. Baedeker
says you can. In ten minutes you'll be at the top of the _col_."
"You may as well tell me that I'll be in my grave. It amounts to the
same thing," wailed Miss Manchester, who was, in the sphere of happier
duties, Miss Letitia Portman, and had been the Princess's governess.
"I can't look down; I can't look up, because I keep thinking of the
unspeakable things behind. After I get my breath and have become
resigned to my fate, I _may_ be comparatively comfortable here, for
some years; but as to stirring either way, there's no use dreaming of
it."
"Well, you'll make an ideal hermitess," said Virginia. "You've exactly
the right features for that profession; austere, yet benevolent. But
you're not really afraid now?"
"Not so much, sitting down," admitted Miss Portman, slowly regaining
her natural color.
"Do you think then, dear, that you'd relapse and lose your head or
anything, if I just strolled on alone to the top of the _col_ for the
view which the guide-book says is so fine, and then came back to
organize a relief expedition, say in about half an hour or so?"
"No-o," said Miss Portman, "I suppose I can bear it. I may as well
accustom myself to loneliness, as I am obliged to spend my remaining
years on this spot. But I'm not at all sure the Duchess would
approve--"
"You mean Lady Mowbray. She wouldn't mind. She knows I've a good head
and--physically--a good heart. Besides, I shall have only myself to
look after. And one really doesn't need a chaperon in going to make an
early call on a mountain view."
"Dearest Princess, I'm not so sure of that, in regard to this mountain
view."
"Miss Mowbray, please. You're very subtle. But I really _haven't_ come
out to look for the Mountain View you refer to. You needn't think it.
I don't know where his lair is, but it's probably miles from here, and
if I knew I wouldn't hunt him there. That would be _un peu trop fort_;
and anyway, I'm inclined to believe that Mother is right about those
dresses. I shall have such nice ones at Kronburg! So you see you can
conscientiously give me your blessing and let me go."
"My dear! As if I could have suspected you would search for him! You
are in Rhaetia not to pursue, but to give an Emperor, who wishes to
have a certain Princess for his consort, a chance to fall in love with
herself."
"If he will--if it can be so. But what do Helen Mowbray and Letitia
Manchester know about the love affairs of emperors and princesses? _Au
revoir_, dear friend; I'm going. By and by, if you have courage to
lift your eyes, you'll see me waving a handkerchief flag at the
rock-corner up there."
Virginia took the alpenstock which she had laid down, and began
picking her way daintily yet pluckily toward the _col_ which she had
named as her goal. There was another route to it, leading on to the
highest peak of the Schneehorn, only to be dared by experienced
climbers, but the way by which the girl and her companion had set out
from Alleheiligen nearly four hours ago, was merely fatiguing, never
dangerous, and Virginia knew that Miss Portman was safe, and not half
as much frightened as she pretended.
They had started at eight, just as the September sun had begun to draw
the night chill out of the keen mountain air; and now it was close
upon twelve. The Princess was hungry.
In Nordeck, the frontier town of Rhaetia as you come in from Germany,
she had bought rücksacks for herself and Miss Portman, to be used upon
just such mountain excursions as this; and to-day the brown canvas
bags were being tested for the first time. Each rücksack stored an
adequate luncheon for its bearer, while on top, secured by straps
passed across the shoulders, lay a folded wrap to be used in case of
rain.
Virginia's burden grew heavy as she mounted, though at first its
weight had seemed trifling. When she had waved her handkerchief at the
turning, and passed out of Miss Portman's sight, it occurred to her
that it would be clever to lighten the rücksack and satisfy her
appetite at the same time.
The one difficulty was that, in her present position, she could not
safely unstrap the bag from her shoulders, open it, take out the
parcel of luncheon, and strap it on again. The way was too narrow, and
the rocks too slippery, to attempt such liberties; at a short
distance, however, and only a little out of the path to the _col_, she
could see a small green plateau, the very place for a rest. But could
she reach it? The girl stood still, and looked wistfully across.
The place could be gained only by a scramble over a ledge of
formidable rocks, and climbing in good earnest here and there, yet--if
the thing could be done at all, it could be done in ten minutes, and
to come back would be comparatively easy. Virginia was tempted.
"The dear Letitia will be eating her own lunch by this time, and won't
miss me if my half hour is a long one," she thought. "And anyway, I
said half an hour or _so_. That means almost anything, when it comes
to an argument."
Another moment, and the girl had started. She was brave at first;
but when she had gone half way--a way which was longer and far more
difficult than she had fancied--she was conscious of a certain
sinking of the heart. She even felt some qualms of sympathy with
the sentiments and intentions Miss Portman had expressed, and
heartily wished herself back by that good lady's side. But it was
against her principles to be conquered, especially when being
conquered meant turning coward, or something like it, and she
scrambled on obstinately, her cheeks burning, her heart thumping,
and her lips pressed together.
What a grim, remorseless giant the mountain was, and what a mere,
creeping fly upon its vast shoulder, she! Little cared the old
mountain that she was a Royal Princess, and that the Emperor who ruled
the land of which it was part, had the intention of marrying her. It
would thwart that imperial intention without a qualm, nor turn a
pebble if the poor little Princess toppled over its cruel shoulder and
fell in a small, crushed heap, without ever having looked upon the
face of the Rhaetian Emperor.
Then there came a later moment when, like Miss Portman, whom she had
so recently laughed to scorn, the Princess felt that she could neither
go on, nor go back. She was horribly homesick. She wanted her mother
and the garden at Hampton Court, and would hardly have thrown a glance
of interest at Leopold if he had appeared before her eyes. There were
tears in those eyes and she was hating the mountain, and all Rhaetia,
with her whole strength, when from the mysterious distance round the
corner of the plateau there came the sound of a man's voice,
cheerfully yodeling.
Never had a sound been so welcome, or seemed so sweet. It was to
Virginia as the voice of an angel. "Help!" she called. "Help!" first
in English, and then, on second thoughts, in Rhaetian.
The yodeling abruptly stopped, and a man appeared round a corner of
rock beyond the green plateau. The sun shone in his eyes, and he
shaded them with his hand to look up at her. Virginia stared,
hopefully, expectantly. A glance photographed a tall figure in a gray
coat passemoiled with green; a soft green cap of felt; short trousers;
bare knees; knitted stockings; nailed boots. Thank heaven, no tourist,
but evidently a mountain man, a guide or a chamois hunter, perhaps; at
all events, one capable of coming to her rescue. These things she saw
and thought, in a flash; and then, the brown hand that had shaded his
eyes, dropped. She caught sight of his face.
It was the Emperor.
A moment ago she had felt that she could look at him with
indifference, and would a thousand times over prefer a glimpse of the
dear old house at Hampton Court, with an easy way to reach it. But
now, everything was changed. There was no longer any danger. He was
there. He was coming to help her. A Power higher than his had arranged
this as their first encounter, and would not have taken the trouble to
bring him to her here, if the meeting were to end in ignominy or
disaster.
He had run across the plateau; now the nailed boots were ringing on
rock. She could gaze down upon his head, he was so close to her. He
was looking up. What a noble face it was! Better than all the
pictures. And the eyes--
Virginia was suddenly and wildly happy. She could have sung for joy, a
song of triumph, and losing her head a little she lost her scant
foothold as well, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the
steeply sloping rock.
If the man had not sprung forward and caught her, she would probably
have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding
down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and
broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an
ace of being on her knees.
After all, it had been a narrow escape; but the man's arms were so
strong, and his eyes so brave, that Virginia scarcely realized the
danger she had passed. It seemed so inevitable now, that he must have
saved her, that there was room in her thoughts for no dreadful
might-have-been. Was it not the One Man sent to her by Destiny, when
if this thing had not been meant, since the hour of her birth, it
might easily have been some mere tourist, sent by Cook?
[Illustration: _She lost her scant foothold, slipped, tried to hold
on, failed, and slid down the rock_]
All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of
green felt adorned with the beard of a chamois, was the face she
had seen in dreams. A dark, austere young face it was, with more of
Mars than Apollo in its lines, yet to her more desirable than all the
ideals of all the sculptors since the world began. He was dressed as a
chamois hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn, almost shabby
clothes to distinguish the wearer from the type he chose to represent.
But as easily might the eagle to whom in her heart she likened him,
try to pass for a barnyard fowl, as this man for a peasant, so thought
the Princess.