The Schwarzweiss Pass, leading from the south-east of Switzerland to
Italy, is one well known to mountaineers, because of the rapid manner
in which they can cross from one country to another, and also because
of the magnificent views that it presents to the traveller. Moreover,
it offers to them a choice either of making a passage over the
snow-clad mountains that rise above it, and across the great
Schwarzweiss glacier, or of keeping to the path that, while rising to
the height at some places of 10,000 feet, is, except at the summit,
perfectly passable in good weather. It is true that he who, even while
on the path, should turn giddy, or walk carelessly, would risk his
life, for though above him only are the vast white "horns" and "Piz,"
below him there are still the ravines through which run the boiling
torrents known respectively as the "Schwarz" and the "Weiss"
rivers--rivers that carry with them huge boulder stones and pine-trees
wrenched from their roots; dry slopes that fall hundreds of feet down
into the valley below; and also the Klein (or little) Schwarzweiss
glacier, a name so given it, not because of its smallness--for it is
two miles long, and in one place, half-a-mile across--but to
distinguish it from the Gross-Schwarzweiss glacier that hangs above on
the other side of the pass.
It is a lonely and grim road, a road in which no bird is heard or seen
from the time that the village of St. Christoph is left behind on the
Swiss side until the village of Santa Madre is reached on the Italian
side; a road that winds at first, and at last, through fir-woods and
pine-trees, but that in the middle is nothing but a path, cut in some
parts and blasted in others, along the granite sides of the rocks, and
hanging in many places above the valley far below. Patches of snow and
pieces of rock that have fallen from above, alone relieve the view on
the side of the path; on the opposite side of the ravine is nothing
but a huge wall of granite that holds no snow, so slippery is it; but
above which hangs, white and gray, like the face of a corpse, the
glacier from which the pass derives its name.
A lonely and grim road even in the daytime, when a few rays of
sunshine manage to penetrate it at midday, when occasionally a party
of tourists may be met with, and when sometimes the voice of a
goatherd calling his flocks rises from the valley below; but lonelier
and more grim, and more black and impenetrable at night, and rarely or
ever then trod by human foot. For he who should attempt the passage of
the Schwarzweiss Pass at night, unless there were a brilliant moon to
light him through its most dangerous parts, would take his life in his
own hands.
Yet, on an August night of the year in which this tale is told, and
when there was a moon that, being near its full, consequently rose
late and shone till nearly daylight, a man was making his way across
this pass to Italy.
Midnight was close at hand as, with weary steps, he descended a
rough-hewn path in the rock--a path which, for safety, had a rude
handrail of iron attached to the side from which it was cut--and
reached a small plateau, the size, perhaps, of an ordinary room, and
from which again the path went on. From this plateau shelved down, for
a hundred feet or more, an almost perpendicular moraine, or glacier
bed, and at the foot of this lay the Klein-Schwarzweiss, with its
crevasses glistening in the moonlight; for the moon had topped even
the great mountains above by now, and lighted up the pass. It was
evidently considered a dangerous part of the route, since between the
edge of the plateau and the side of the moraine a wooden railing had
been erected, consisting of two short upright posts and a long cross
one. As the man reached this plateau, holding to the rail with one
hand, while with the other he used his alpenstock as a walking-stick,
he perceived a stone--it may have been placed there for the
purpose--large enough for a seat; and taking off his knapsack wearily,
he sat down upon it.
"Time presses," he muttered to himself, "yet I must rest. Otherwise I
shall not be at Santa Madre by eight o'clock to-morrow. I can go no
farther without a rest."
There is an indefinite feeling of awfulness in being alone at night
amongst the mountains, in knowing and feeling that for miles around
there is no other creature in these vast, cold solitudes but
ourselves: and this man had that feeling now.
"How still--how awful this pass is!" he said to himself, "with no
sound but the creaking of that glacier below--with no human being here
but me. Yet, I should be glad I am alone."
At this moment a few stones in the moraine slipped and fell into the
glacier, and the man started at the distinct sound they made in that
wilderness of silence. Then, as he sat there gazing up at the moon and
the snow above him, he continued his meditations.
"It is best," he thought, "that the poor old mother did not know when
I said 'good-bye' to her this afternoon, and she bade me come back
soon, that I should never come back, that I had a farther destination
than Italy before me; best that my father did not know that we should
never meet again. Never! never! Ah, God! it is a long word."
"Yet it must be done," he went on. "If I want to drag this miserable
life out, I must do it elsewhere than in England. That sleuth-hound
will surely find me there; it is possible that he will even track me
to the antipodes. Yet, if I were sure that he is lying about--having
seen my face before, I would go back and brave him. Where did he ever
see it?--where?--where? To my knowledge I have never seen him."
He rose and walked to the railing above the moraine, and looked down
at the glacier, and listened to the cracking made by the seracs. "I
might make an end of it now," he thought. "If I threw myself down
there, it would be looked upon as an ordinary Alpine accident. But,
no! that is the coward's resource. I have blasted my life for ever by
one foul deed; let me endure it as a reparation for my crime. But what
is my future to be? Am I to live a miserable existence for years in
some distant country, frightened at every strange face, dreading to
read every newspaper that reaches me for fear that I shall see myself
denounced in it, and never knowing a moment's peace or tranquillity?
Ah, Gervase! I wonder what you would say if you knew that, for your
sake, I have sacrificed every hope of happiness in this world and all
my chances of salvation in the next." He went back to the big stone
after uttering these thoughts and sat down wearily upon it. "If I
could know that that Spaniard was baffled at last and had lost all
track of me, I could make my arrangements more calmly for leaving
Europe, might even look forward to returning to England some day, and
spending my life there while expiating my crime. But, while I know
nothing, I must go on and on till at last I reach some place where I
may feel safe."
He looked at his watch as he spoke to himself, and saw that the night
was passing. "Another five minutes' rest," he said, "and I will start
again across the pass."
As he sat there, taking those last five minutes of rest, it seemed to
him that there was some other slight sound breaking the stillness of
the night, something else besides the occasional cracking noise made
by the glacier below and the subdued roar of the torrents in the
valley. A light, regular sound, that nowhere else but in a solitude
like this would, perhaps, be heard, but that here was perfectly
distinct. It came nearer and nearer, and once, as it approached, some
small stones were dislodged and rattled down from above, and fell with
a plunge on to the glacier below: and then, as it came closer, he knew
that it was made by the footsteps of a man. And, looking up, he saw a
human figure descending the path to the plateau by which he had come,
and standing out clearly defined against the moonlight.
"It is some guide going home," he said to himself, "or starting out
upon an early ascent. How firmly he descends the path."
The man advanced, and he watched him curiously, noticing the easy way
in which he came down the rough-hewn steps, scarcely touching the
handrail or using the heavy-pointed stick he carried in place of the
usual alpenstock. And he noticed that, besides his knapsack, he
carried the heavy coil of rope that guides use in their ascents.
At last the new comer reached the plateau, and, as he took the last
two or three steps that led on to it, he saw that there was another
man upon it, and stopped. Stopped to gaze for one moment at the
previous occupant, and then to advance towards him and to stand
towering above him as he sat upon the boulder-stone.
"You are Philip Smerdon," he said in a voice that sounded deep and
hollow in the other's ear.
Utterly astonished, and with another feeling that was not all
astonishment, Smerdon rose and stood before him and said:
"I do not know of what importance my name can be to you."
"Your name is of no importance, but you are of the greatest to me.
When I tell you _my_ name you will understand why. It is Miguel
Guffanta."
"Guffanta!" Smerdon exclaimed, "Guffanta!"
"Yes! the friend of Walter Cundall."
"What do you want with me?" the other asked, but as he asked he knew
the answer that would come from the man before him.
"But one thing now, though ten minutes ago I wanted more. I wanted to
see, then, if the man whom I sought for in London and at Occleve
Chase, whom I have followed from place to place till I have found him
here, was the same man I saw stab my friend to death in----"
"You saw it?"
"Yes, I saw it. And you are the man who did it!"
"It is false!"
"It is true! Do you dare to tell me I lie, you, a---- Bah! Why should
I cross words with a murderer--a thief!"
"I am no thief!" Smerdon said, his anger rising at this opprobrious
term, even as he felt his guilt proclaimed.
"You are! You stole his watch and money because you thought to make
his murder appear a common one. And so it was! You slew him because
you feared he would dispossess your master of what he unrighteously
held, because you thought that you would lose your place."
"Again I say it is false! I had no thought of self! I killed him--yes,
I!--because I loved my friend, my master as you term him, because he
threatened to come between him and the woman he loved. Had I known of
Walter Cundall's noble nature, as I knew of it afterwards, no power on
earth could have induced me to do such a deed."
"It is infamy for such as you to speak of his nobility--but enough!
Are you armed to-night, as you were on that night?"
"I have no arms about me. Why do you ask?"
"To tell you that no arms can avail you now. You must come with me."
"To where?"
"To the village prison at St. Christoph. There I will leave you until
you can be taken to England."
For the first time since he had seen the avenger of Walter Cundall
standing before him, Smerdon smiled bitterly.
"Señor Guffanta," he said, "you are very big and strong--it may well
be stronger than I am. But you overrate your strength strangely if you
think that any power you possess can make me go with you. I am a
murderer--God help and pardon me! It is probable I shall be a double
one before this night is over."
"You threaten me--you! You defy me!" Guffanta exclaimed, while his
dark eyes gleamed ominously.
"Yes, I defy you! If my sin is to be punished, it shall not be by you,
at least. Here, in this lonely place where for miles no other human
creature is near, I defy you to do your worst. We are man to man; do
you think I fear you?"
In a moment Guffanta had sprung at him, had seized him by the throat,
and with the other arm had encircled his body.
"So be it," he hissed in Smerdon's ear, "it suits me better than a
prolonged punishment of your crime would do."
For a moment they struggled locked together, and in that moment
Smerdon knew that he was doomed; that he was about to expiate his
crime. The long, sinewy hand of the Spaniard that was round his throat
was choking him; his own blows fell upon the other's body harmlessly.
And he was being dragged towards the edge of the moraine, already his
back was against the wooden railing that alone stood between the
plateau and destruction. He could, even at this moment, hear it
creaking with his weight; it would break in another instant!
"Will you yield, assassin, villain?" Guffanta muttered.
"Never! Do your worst."
He felt one hand tighten round his throat more strongly, he felt the
other arm of the Spaniard driving him back; in that moment of supreme
agony he heard the breaking of the railing and felt it give under him,
and then Guffanta's hands had loosed him, and, striking the moraine
with his head, he fell down and down till he lay a senseless mass upon
the white bosom of the glacier.
And Guffanta standing above, with his head bared to the stars and to
the waning moon, exclaimed, as he lifted his hand to the heavens,
"Walter, you are avenged."
The day dawned upon the plateau; a few struggling rays of the sun
illuminated the great glacier above and turned its dead gray snow and
ice into a pure, warm white, while the mists rolled away from the high
mountains keeping watch above; and below on the smaller glacier, and
at the edge of a yawning crevasse, lay the body of Philip Smerdon.
Two guides, proceeding over the pass to meet a party of mountain
climbers, reached the plateau at dawn, and sitting down upon the stone
to eat a piece of bread and take a draught of cold coffee, saw his
knapsack lying beside it.
"What does it mean?" the one said to the other.
"It means death," his companion replied, "the railing is broken! Some
one has fallen."
Slowly and carefully, and each holding to one of the upright posts,
they peered over and down on to the glacier, and there they saw what
was lying below. A whispered word sufficed, a direction given by one
to the other, and these hardy mountaineers were descending the
moraine, digging their sticks deeply into the stones, and gradually
working their way skilfully to the glacier.
"Is he dead, Carl?" the one asked of his friend, who stooped over the
prostrate form and felt his heart.
"No; he lives. Mein Gott! how has he ever fallen here without instant
death? But he must die! See, his bones are all broken!" and as he
spoke he lifted Smerdon's arm and touched one of his legs.
"What shall we do with him?" the other asked.
"We must remove him. Even though he die on the way, it is better than
to leave him here. Let us take him to the house of Father Neümann. It
is but to the foot of the glacier."
Very gently these men lifted him in their arms, though not so gently
but that they wrung a groan of agony from him as they did so, and bore
him down the glacier to where it entered the valley; and then, having
handed him to the priest, who lived in what was little better than a
hut, they left him.
Late that afternoon the dying man opened his eyes, and looked round
the room in which he lay. At his bedside he saw a table with a Cross
laid upon it, and at the window of the room an aged priest sat reading
a Breviary. "Where am I?" he asked in English.
The priest rose and came to the bed, and then spoke to him in German.
"My son," he said, "what want of yours can I supply?"
"Tell me where I am," Smerdon answered in the same language, "and how
long I have to live."
"You are in my house, the house of the _Curé_ of Sastratz. For the
span of your life none can answer but God. But, my son, I should do
ill if I did not tell you that your hours are numbered. The doctor
from St. Christoph has seen you."
"Give me paper and ink----"
"My son, you cannot write, and----"
"I _will_ write," Smerdon said faintly, "even though I die in the
attempt."
The _Curé_ felt his right arm, which was not broken like the other,
and then he brought him paper and ink, and holding the former up on
his Breviary before the dying man, he put the pen in his hand. And
slowly and painfully, and with eyes that occasionally closed, Smerdon
wrote:
"I am dying at the house of the _Curé_ of Sastratz, near the
Schwarzweiss Pass; from a fall. Tell Gervase that _I alone murdered
Walter Crandall_. If he will come to me and I am still alive, I will
tell him all.
"PHILIP SMERDON."
Then he put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to Ida
Raughton. And ere he once more lapsed into unconsciousness, he asked
the priest to write another for him to his mother, and to address it
to an hotel at Zurich.
"They will be sent at once?" he asked faintly.
"Surely, my son."