The Alpine Fay Part 20

"It certainly is by moonlight."

"Then we will give it up. I promised Frau von Lasberg to return early, and I must keep my word. Gronau can descend with the guide by the cliff, since he seems to want to do so. He can meet us on the high-road."

The little party set out together, Gronau and Sepp agreeing to meet it at an appointed spot in the road below. The meadow with the flickering flames soon vanished, and the silence of the mountain-forest replaced the shouting and laughter on the height. Silence also fell upon the descending group; they were obliged to walk heedfully, for the path, although neither steep nor perilous, lay in the shadow of the dense pine forest, which hid the moonlight except for a brilliant ray here and there. Waltenberg walked close beside Erna; the other two followed.

Thus descending, they reached the edge of the forest in about half an hour and emerged upon the cleared mountainside.

"The heights all around are still flaming," said Waltenberg, pointing upward, where, upon the other summits, the fires were yet blazing. "The Wolkensteiners lit their pile early. Her Majesty the Mountain-Sprite takes precedence, and she seems actually to mean to unveil in honour of the night."

He was right. The clouds that during the entire evening had hovered about the summit of the Wolkenstein and had veiled its peak were beginning to float away.

"I wonder that Gronau and Sepp are not here," Erna remarked. "They ought to have been here before us, since they took the shorter path."

"Perhaps they have met with some ghostly hinderance," said Benno, laughing. "It is Midsummer Eve, and the mountains are alive with fairies and spirits. I'll wager either that they have encountered some phantom, or that they are now searching for the treasures which rise from hidden depths to the surface on this night in the year. Ah, there they are!"

In fact, Sepp made his appearance on the other side of the road, but he was alone, and the haste of his approach boded ill.

"What is the matter?" said Waltenberg, going to meet him. "Has anything happened? Where is Herr Gronau?"

Sepp pointed in the direction of the Vulture Cliff: "Up there! We have had an accident. The gentle man slipped on the rocks, and his foot----"

"There are no bones broken?"

"No, 'tis not so bad as that, for we got down to even ground, but he could not go any farther. The gentleman is up there in the forest, and cannot move his foot, and I came to ask the Herr Doctor to look after him."

"Of course I must look after him," said Reinsfeld, instantly turning to go. "Where did you leave him? Far from here?"

"No; only a short quarter of a mile up."

"I will go with you," said Waltenberg, hastily. "I must see after Gronau. Pray stay here, Fraulein von Thurgau; you hear it is not far, and we shall return immediately."

"Would it not be better that we should all go up together?" asked Elmhorst. "My aid might be necessary."

"Oh, a sprained ankle, or even a broken limb, is not dangerous," said Benno. "We three can do all that is necessary, even although we should be obliged to carry Herr Gronau; and Fraulein von Thurgau cannot be left here alone."

"Certainly not; Herr Elmhorst must stay with her," Ernst said, decidedly. "We will be as quick as possible, rely upon it, Fraulein von Thurgau."

The arrangement was a very natural one; fearless as the young lady might be, she could not be left here in the night alone, and Wolfgang, almost a member of her family, was, of course, the one to be left to take care of her. Nevertheless neither of them seemed pleased. Erna objected, and thought it would be better to accompany the doctor. But Waltenberg would not hear of it; he hurried away with Reinsfeld and Sepp over the meadow, and then all three vanished in the opposite wood.

Those left behind were obliged to accommodate themselves to circ.u.mstances. They exchanged a few remarks about the accident and its possible consequences, and then there was a long silence.

The midsummer night with its deep, mysterious stillness brooded above the mountains, but without the darkness of night. The full moon, now high in the heavens, bathed everything in its dreamy radiance. In its light the fires upon the mountains gleamed but dimly. They no longer flamed aloft, but looked like glowing stars fallen from the firmament and shining on the heights in clear, quiet beauty. By day there was a distant view from this meadow, now the mountain world was veiled in a delicate mist that left only certain detached features distinctly visible. The rigid lines of the tall summits were softened, the thick forests were ma.s.sed in bluish shadow; below, where yawned the Wolkenstein abyss, darkness still reigned, although the moonlight already silvered the bridge. It reached from rock to rock, like a narrow, shining plank, discernible by keen eyes even at this height.

The Wolkenstein summit alone, close at hand, was defined sharply against the clear sky of night. The forests at its feet, the jagged outlines of the billowy sea of rocks, and the gigantic proportions of the steep wall rising from them,--all were flooded with snowy l.u.s.tre.

Around its head there was still a fleecy vapour, which seemed slowly melting away in the moonbeams; at times each icy peak would be revealed clearly, to half vanish again in a semi-transparent veil. Erna had seated herself on the stump of a felled tree on the border of the forest. The scene fascinated her, as it did her companion, who was, nevertheless, the first to break the long silence.

"Herr Waltenberg could hardly achieve that ascent," he said. "It was scarcely necessary to warn him off so seriously; he certainly would have turned back at the foot of the rocky wall."

"You heard what we said?" the girl asked, without looking away from the Wolkenstein.

"I did. I was standing very near you."

"Then you heard that the attempt was relinquished."

"At _your_ request."

"I was interested that it should be so; there is something distressing to me in all aimless foolhardiness."

"In _all_? I think Herr Waltenberg attached another significance to your words; and was he not justified in so doing?"

Erna turned and bestowed upon him a glance of disapproval: "Herr Elmhorst, you evidently consider yourself as already belonging to our family, but I cannot, nevertheless, accord you the right to ask such questions."

The rebuff was sufficiently plain. Wolfgang bit his lip.

"Pardon me, Fraulein von Thurgau, if I was indiscreet; but, from the remarks of my future father-in-law, I judged the matter to be no longer a secret."

"My uncle spoke of it to you? And before his departure?"

"a.s.suredly. And he also did so three weeks ago, when I was in the city."

A dark flush mounted to the girl's cheek. So the president had even then confided to his prospective son-in-law his plans for disposing of his niece, probably before her personal acquaintance with Waltenberg.

All the pride of her nature was in revolt as she replied, "I know my uncle puts a price upon everything, and why not upon my hand? But in this case the decisive word is mine, as both he and you seem to have forgotten."

"I?" said Wolfgang, indignantly. "Can you suppose me to have any share in his plan?"

She looked at him, with a strange expression which he could not unriddle, and there was a shade of scorn in her voice as she replied, "No, certainly not in this plan."

"You would do me gross injustice by such a suspicion. Moreover, I have no liking for Herr Waltenberg, and I feel sure that, despite all his brilliant qualities, he is not fitted to make another human being happy."

"That is your opinion," Erna said, coldly. "In such a case all that a woman takes into consideration is whether she is beloved without calculation or reserve."

"Ought that alone to be decisive? I should suppose there might be a question as to whether she herself loves."

The words came slowly and almost with hesitation from his lips, and yet his eyes were riveted in breathless eagerness upon the face so clearly revealed in the bright moonlight. There was no reply; Erna's glance avoided his: her eyes were fixed upon the distant scene. The mountain-fires were growing fainter; the largest, upon the Wolkenstein, still gleamed with starlike radiance.

Above these the wreathing mist was still floating, and the moonbeams called forth from it strange shapes, which, when the eye would have seized and held them fast, eluded it and melted away. Slowly, however, from among them the topmost peak emerged white and gleaming, the inaccessible throne of the Alpine Fay in her garment of eternal ice and snow.

Wolfgang approached the young girl and stood close beside her as he continued, in an undertone: "I have no right, I know, to ask this question, but doubtless you have put it to yourself, and the answer----"

A low, angry growl interrupted him. Griff had not forgotten his early antipathy for the superintendent; he could not endure to have him approach his mistress, and, as if to defend her, thrust himself between them. Erna laid her hand caressingly upon the dog's head, and he was instantly silent; then she asked, "Why do you hate Ernst Waltenberg?"

"I?" Elmhorst was apparently amazed by this counter-question, which found him entirely unprepared to reply.

"Yes. Can you deny that it is so?"

"No," said Wolfgang, with defiant frankness. "I confess it. I hate him!"

"You must have some reason for so doing."

"I have a reason. But you must allow me to follow your example and withhold the answer to your question."