PARNASSUS
Brown, squatting cross-legged among the alpine roses, squinted along his
level rifle.
"Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection in his quiet voice.
"Stand very still, gentlemen," he added in German.
"Drop your rifles. Drop ’em quick!" he repeated more sharply. "Up with
your hands--hold them up high! Higher, if you please!--quickly. Now, then,
what are you doing on this alp?"
What they were doing seemed apparent enough--two gentlemen of Teutonic
persuasion, out stalking game--deer, rehbok or chamois--one a tall, dark,
nice-looking young fellow wearing the usual rough gray jacket with
stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather, and leather breeches of
the alpine hunter. His knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and
bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his arms.
The other man was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red
face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a
Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers
spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.
From his _rücksack_ stuck out a butterfly net in two sections and the
deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss
adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was
slung from his broad shoulders.
Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already getting to his feet from
the trampled bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent’s astonished voice
break forth in pedantic German:
"Siurd! Is it _thou_ then?"
"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking young fellow amiably. And,
in a delightful voice and charming English:
"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he inquired smilingly; "or shall
I continue to invoke the Olympian gods with classically uplifted and
imploring arms?"
Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping back, he watched the greeting
between these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped between stock and
barrel, hung loosely between both hands. His expression became vacantly
good humoured; but his brain was working like lightning.
Stent’s firm hand encountered Von Glahn’s and held it in questioning
astonishment. Looking him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it is good
to see you again. It is amazing to meet you this way. I am glad. I have
never forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was speaking to Brown about
you--of our wonderful ibex hunt! I was telling Brown--my comrade--" he
turned his head slightly and presented the two young men--"Mr. Brown, an
American----"
"American?" repeated Von Glahn in his gentle, well-bred voice, offering
his hand. And, in turn, becoming sponsor, he presented his stocky
companion as Dr. von Dresslin; and the ceremony instantly stiffened to a
more rigid etiquette.
Then, in his always gentle, graceful way, Von Glahn rested his hand
lightly on Stent’s shoulder:
"You made us jump--you two Americans--as though you had been British. Of
what could two Americans be afraid in the Carnic Alps to challenge a pair
of wandering ibex stalkers?"
"You forget that I am Canadian," replied Stent, forcing a laugh.
"At that, you are practically American and civilian--" He glanced
smilingly over their equipment, carelessly it seemed to Stent, as though
verifying all absence of military insignia. "Besides," he added with his
gentle humour, "there are no British in Italy. And no Italians in these
mountains, I fancy; they have their own affairs to occupy them on the
Isonzo I understand. Also, there is no war between Italy and Germany."
Stent smiled, perfectly conscious of Brown’s telepathic support in
whatever was now to pass between them and these two Germans. He knew, and
Brown knew, that these Germans must be taken back as prisoners; that,
suspicious or not, they could not be permitted to depart again with a
story of having met an American and a Canadian after ibex among the Carnic
Alps.
These two Germans were already their prisoners; but there was no hurry
about telling them so.
"How do you happen to be here, Siurd?" asked Stent, frankly curious.
Von Glahn lifted his delicately formed eyebrows, then, amused:
"Count von Plessis invites me; and"--he laughed outright--"he must have
invited you, Harry, unless you are poaching!"
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief second believing in the part he
was playing; "I supposed this to be a free alp."
He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter said, still frankly amused:
"_Soyez tranquille_, Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my friends--in
my company--to shoot the Queen’s alm."
With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he slipped the _rücksack_ from his
shoulders, let it fall among the _alpenrosen_ beside his sporting rifle.
"We have a long day and a longer night ahead of us," he said pleasantly,
looking from Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just above us; the ibex
should pass here at dawn on their way back to the peak. Shall we
consolidate our front, gentlemen--and make it a Quadruple Entente?"
Stent replied instantly: "We join you with thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt
is no experience at all compared to your record of a veteran--" He looked
full and significantly at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have all day
and--a long night before us. Let us make ourselves comfortable here in the
sun before we take--our final stations."
And they seated themselves in the lee of the crag, foregathering
fraternally in the warm alpine sunshine.
The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted as he sat down. After he had
lighted his pipe he grunted again, screwed together his butterfly net and
gazed hard through thick-lensed spectacles at Brown.
"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?" he
inquired, still staring intently at the American.
"I don’t know anything about them," explained Brown. "What are
Lepidoptera?"
"The _schmetterling_--the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine
species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four
varietal forms." His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown’s
costume to another--not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort
of protruding and indifferent stare.
His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment where the lump under Brown’s
tunic indicated something concealed--a hunting knife, for example. Brown’s
automatic was strapped there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless still,
remained fixed for a second only, then travelled on toward the Ross
rifle--the Athabasca Regiment having been permitted to exchange this
beloved weapon for the British regulation piece recently issued to the
Canadians. From behind the thick lenses of his spectacles the Herr
Professor examined the rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
an entomological monologue for Brown’s edification. And all the while Von
Glahn and Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were exchanging what
appeared to be the frankest of confidences and the happiest of youthful
reminiscences.
"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor von Dresslin, "here in the Alps
we possess one notable example--namely, the Parnassus Apollo. It is for
the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently studied butterfly that I
have, upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself equipped with net and
suitable paraphernalia."
"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin box and the net. The Herr
Professor’s pop-eyed attention was now occupied with the service puttees
worn by Brown. A sportsman also might have worn them, of course.
"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of
the larger magnitude among European Lepidoptera, yet not of the largest.
The Parnassians, allied to the Papilionidæ, all live only in high
altitudes, and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered red
and plack ge-spotted wings, to be readily recognized. I haf already two
specimens captured this morning. I haff the honour, sir, to exhibit them
for your inspection----"
He fished out a flat green box from his pocket, opened it under Brown’s
nose, leaning close enough to touch Brown with an exploring and furtive
elbow--and felt the contour of the automatic.
Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones Brown beheld, pinned side by
side upon the cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously pretty
butterflies.
Their drooping and still pliable wings seemed as thin as white tissue
paper; their bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red and black
spots decorated the frail membrane of the wings in a curiously pleasing
harmony of pattern and of colour.
"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea he was saying the wrong thing.
Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor von Dresslin continued: "I,
the life history of the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early youth
investigated with minuteness, diligence, and patience."--His protuberant
eyes were now fixed on Brown’s rifle again.--"For many years I haff bred
this Apollo butterfly from the egg, from the caterpillar, from the
chrysalis. I have the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf forms,
the hybrid forms investigated under effery climatic condition. Notes
sufficient for three volumes of quarto already exist as a residuum of my
investigations----"
He looked up suddenly into the American’s face--which was the first sudden
movement the Herr Professor had made----
"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing. Here iss material for thirty!--A
lifetime iss too short to know all the secrets of a single species.... If
I may inquire, sir, of what pattern is your most interesting and admirable
rifle?"
"A--Ross," said Brown, startled into a second’s hesitation.
"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality iss it, a R-r-ross?"
"It’s a Canadian weapon. We Americans use it a great deal for big game."
"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian military employed perhaps, sir?"
"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the British Government has
taken away the Ross rifle from the Canadians and given them the regulation
weapon."
"So? Permit--that I examine, sir?"
Brown did not seem to hear him or notice the extended
hand--blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.
The Professor, not discouraged, repeated: "Sir, _bitte darf ich_, may I be
permitted?" And Brown’s eyes flashed back a lightning shaft of inquiry.
Then, carelessly smiling, he passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr
Professor; and, at the same time, drew toward him that gentleman’s
silver-mounted weapon, and carelessly cocked it.
"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently in the hollow of his
left arm, apparently preoccupied with admiration at the florid workmanship
of stock and guard. No movement that the Herr Professor made escaped him;
but presently he thought to himself--"The old dodo is absolutely
unsuspicious. My nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes that Fritz
has!"
When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed back the weapon Brown laid the
German sporting piece beside it with murmured complimentary comment.
"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill when properly handled. We
Germans may cordially recommend them for our American--friends--" Here was
the slightest hesitation--"Pardon! I mean that we may safely guarantee
this rifle _to_ our friends."
Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses of the spectacles. The
popeyes remained expressionless, utterly, Teutonically inscrutable. A big
heather bee came buzzing among the _alpenrosen_. Its droning hum resembled
the monotone of the Herr Professor.
Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do you remember our ambition to
wear the laurels of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our notes at the
lectures on the poets? And our ambition to write at least one deathless
poem apiece before we died?"
Von Glahn’s dark eyes narrowed with merriment and his gentle laugh and
attractive voice sounded pleasantly in Brown’s ears.
"You wrote at least _one_ famous poem to Rosa," he said, still laughing.
"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Café Luitpold! By Jove I did, didn’t I, Siurd?
How on earth did you ever remember that?"
"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat aloud:
"Rosa with the winsome eyes,
When my beer you bring to me;
I can see through your disguise!
I my goddess recognize--
Hebe, young immortally,
Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"
Stent laughed outright:
"How funny to think of it now--and to think of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do
you forget that you also composed a most wonderful war-poem--to the metre
of ’Fly, Eagle, Fly!’ Do you remember how it began?
"Slay, Eagle, Slay!
They die who dare decry us!
Red dawns ’The Day.’
The western cliffs defy us!
Turn their grey flood
To seas of blood!
And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!
For God has willed this German ’Day’!"
"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red.
"What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven’s sake spare my
modesty such accurate reminiscences."
"I thought it fine poetry--then," insisted Stent with a forced smile. But
his voice had subtly altered.
They looked at each other in silence, the reminiscent smile still stamped
upon their stiffening lips.
For a brief moment the years had seemed to fade--time was not--the
sunshine of that careless golden age had seemed to warm them once again
there where they sat amid the _alpenrosen_ below the snow line on the Col
de la Reine.
But it did not endure; everything concerning earth and heaven and life and
death had so far remained unsaid between these two. And never would be
said. Both understood that, perhaps.
Then Von Glahn’s sidelong and preoccupied glance fell on Stent’s field
glasses slung short around his neck. His rigid smile died out. Soldiers
wore field glasses that way; hunters, when they carried them instead of
spyglasses, wore them _en bandoulière_.
He spoke, however, of other matters in his gentle, thoughtful
voice--avoiding always any mention of politics and war--chatted on
pleasantly with the familiarity and insouciance of old acquaintance. Once
he turned slowly and looked at Brown--addressed him politely--while his
dark eyes wandered over the American, noting every detail of dress and
equipment, and the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the tunic.
Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle, but discarded it carelessly,
apparently not noticing that Stent and Brown always resumed their own
weapons when he touched his.
Brown said to Von Glahn:
"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My friend Stent tells me that you are
old at it."
"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown," replied the young man
modestly. "And--other game," he added with a shrug.
"I know how it’s done in theory," continued the American; "and I am
wondering whether we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow or
whether we climb higher and lie in the snow up there."
"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight--Mr.
Brown."
There was an odd look in Siurd’s soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to
Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect--and instantly appearing to
recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect
English.
"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: ’Ibex may be stirring,
as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.’ My
family," he added apologetically, "come from the Traunwald; I forget and
employ the vernacular at times."
The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the
moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the
blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he
is drawing on the bowstring.
Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that
these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among
the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end,
anyway.
They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost
imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.
"_Hirsch_" grunted the Herr Professor--"_und stück_--on the north
alm"--staring through his telescope intently.
"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the
distant crags. "_Stück_ on the western shoulder," he added--"and a stag
royal among them."
"Of ten?"
"Of twelve."
After a silence: "Why are they galloping--I wonder--the herd-stag and
_stück_?"
Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent’s arm.
"A _geier_, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.
"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little forced.
"_Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok_--high on the third
peak--feeding."
"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he
closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.
His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying
aside his own rifle again--and the German’s expression did not alter.
"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.
Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the
third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on
the chasm’s mossy edge.
"I don’t see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still searching.
"On the third peak, _mon ami_"--drawing Stent familiarly to his side--the
lightest caressing contact--merely enough to verify the existence of the
automatic under his old classmate’s tunic.
If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it,
watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all
certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken
and _alpenrosen_ a loppy winged butterfly--a large, whitish creature,
seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown’s
feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown’s head.
The Herr Professor snatched up his net--struck heavily toward the winged
thing--a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched
together. Brown went down with a crash.
At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then
staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn’s nervous arm.
Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm’s awful
edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn,
rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight
into the eyes of his old classmate--Stent lost the fight, fell outward,
wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous
depths--down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and
the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.
After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still
winging its erratic way where God willed it--a frail, dainty, translucent,
wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf--symbol, perhaps of the soul
already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.
The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk
handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
American behind his back.
"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted--"mit his pockets full of automatic
clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd?--English and Yankee they are
one in blood and one at heart--pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I
told you already _gesternabend_? The British _schwein_ are in Italy
already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over _mal_!"
But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his
back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.
So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful,
stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he
worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard
something about _something_ being "_über alles_"--God, perhaps, perhaps
the blue sky overhead which covered him and his sickened friend alike, and
the hurt enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above--and the dead man
lying very, very far below them--where river and forest and moss and
Parnassus were now alike to him.