The Count of Nideck Part 18

"What's that?"

"Having forgot my horn. I should like to have sounded the return as we were approaching Nideck. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He lighted his stub of a pipe, and we started on again. The track of the she-wolf now led up a wooded slope so steep that we were obliged many times to dismount and lead our horses by the bridle.

"There it goes to the right," said Sperver; "in this direction the mountains go up like the side of a house. One of us may have to lead both horses while the other scrambles along after the trail, and as the devil will have it, it's getting so dark we can't see anything much longer."

The landscape was at this point a.s.suming a grander aspect. Enormous boulders, covered with icicles, raised one beyond another their angular peaks, like breakers in a sea of snow.

There is nothing that imparts a more melancholy sense to the beholder than a winter scene among these mountains. The irregular line of crests, the dark ravines, the denuded trees and bushes sparkling with a tracery of h.o.a.r frost, all a.s.sume before your eyes a look of indescribable desolation and still sadness; and the silence, so profound that you can hear a dead leaf rustle on the snow-crust, or a pine-needle swirl from its branch,--this silence oppresses you; it forces upon you the realization of man's littleness in the scale of Nature's vast economy.

Sometimes we felt a need of speaking, if only to break the stillness:

"Ah, we are getting nearer the end of this business! How beastly cold it is! Lieverle, what have you got there?" or some like insignificant phrase.

Unfortunately, our horses were beginning to tire; they sank up to their bellies in the snow, and no longer whinnied as they did on setting out.

The inextricable defiles of the Black Forest stretched out indefinitely.

The old woman loved these solitudes; here she had pa.s.sed around a deserted charcoal-burner's hut; further on she had torn up the tender roots which overspread the surface of the rocks; and here again she had sat down at the foot of a tree to rest, and that recently,--at most two hours before, for the marks in the snow were fresh. At sight of this, our hopes and enthusiasm were redoubled; but the daylight was fast fading out. Strangely enough, ever since our departure from Nideck, we had met neither woodcutters, charcoal-burners, nor log-haulers; the solitude was as complete as in the Siberian steppes. At five o'clock the night had so far closed in that Sperver halted and said to me:

"Gaston, we have started a couple of hours too late. The Plague has got too long a start of us. In ten minutes the woods will be as dark as an oven. Our best plan will be to reach the Roche Creuse, twenty minutes from here, light a good fire, and eat our provisions and empty our goat-skins. When the moon comes up we will take up the trail again, and if the old hag is not the devil himself, ten to one we shall come upon her frozen stiff at the foot of some tree, for no human creature could live through such a tramp in such weather as this. Sebalt himself, who is the best walker in all the Black Forest, could not have stood it.

What do you say, my boy?"

"I should be mad to think otherwise, and, moreover, I am perishing with hunger!"

"Well, let's be off!"

He took the lead, and we pressed into a narrow gorge between two walls of precipitous rock. The fir-trees formed an arch above our heads; beneath our feet trickled what the frost had left of a mighty torrent, and from time to time a wandering ray penetrated the obscurity, and reflected the dull, lead-colored ice mantle. The darkness had become such that I deemed it wise to let my bridle fall on the horse's neck.

The steps of our horses on the slippery pebbles reechoed with an odd noise like the laughing and chattering of monkeys through the narrow glen. The rocks took up and repeated every sound, and in the distance a blue point seemed to grow as we advanced. It was the outlet of the gorge.

"Gaston," said Sperver, "we are now in the bed of the Tunkelbach. It is the wildest pa.s.s in all the Black Forest, and it terminates in a cave called La Marmite du Grand Guelard. In the spring, when the snow is melting, the Tunkelbach pours all its torrents into it to a depth of two hundred feet. It makes a tremendous roar; the waters leap over the edge, and their spray falls upon the neighboring mountains. Sometimes they even flood the cavern of the Roche Creuse, but just now it must be as dry as a powder-flask, and we can build a big fire there."

As I listened to Sperver's observations, I was at the same time considering this ominous defile, and reflecting that the instinct of the savage beasts, which seek such retreats far from the light of day and from all that gladdens the soul, must be akin to remorse. The creatures that live in the sunshine,--the goat on the open crag, the horse running free on the plain, the dog frisking about his master, the bird basking in the sunshine,--all breathe in joy and happiness with their gambols and their songs. The kid, browsing in the shade of the great trees on the green hillside, is as poetic an object as the retreat that he prefers; the wild boar, as fierce and savage as the trackless brakes through which he roams; the eagle as proud and lofty as the towering peaks where he rests in his sweeping flight; the lion as majestic as the mighty arches of his den,--but the wolf, the fox, and the ferret seek the darkness, with fear their only companion; aye, this instinct is closely related to remorse.

I was still reflecting upon these things and already felt the keen air blowing against my face--for we were approaching the opening of the gorge--when suddenly we perceived a reddish reflection dancing upon the rock a hundred feet above us, turning to purple the dark green of the firs, and making the frost wreaths on the tree trunks glitter.

"Ha!" whispered Sperver hoa.r.s.ely, "we've got the witch!"

My heart leaped; we moved along pressed close against each other. The dog growled warningly.

"Can't she escape us?"

"No; she is caught like a rat in a trap. La Marmite du Grand Guelard has but one outlet, and we are barring it. Everywhere else the rocks rise sheer two hundred feet. Ha! you Satan's hag, I've got you!"

He sprang from his horse into the ice-cold water of the Tunkelbach, handing me his bridle. I shivered. The click of his rifle as he c.o.c.ked it sounded with fearful distinctness, and the sound sent a nervous wave clear to my finger-tips.

"Sperver, what are you doing?"

"Never fear; it is only to frighten her."

"Very good; but no blood! Remember what I have already told you. The ball that strikes the Plague kills the Count!"

"Rest easy on that score!"

He moved forward, without stopping further to listen to me. I could hear the splash of his feet in the water; then I saw his tall figure appear at the outlet of the glen, black against the bluish background. He stood full five minutes motionless. Meanwhile, I was slowly approaching him, and when he at last turned around, I was within three paces of him.

"Sh!" he said mysteriously; "look there!"

At the end of the open gorge, now revealed to us, which was dug out like a quarry in the mountainside, I saw a bright fire unrolling its golden spires before the mouth of a cave, and in front of the fire sat a man with his hands clasped about his knees, whom I recognized by his clothing as the Baron Zimmer. He sat motionless, with his eyes fixed on the fire, and seemed lost in thought. Behind him a dark form lay stretched upon the ground, and further in the distance, his horse, half lost in the shadows, gazed upon us with fixed eyes, ears p.r.i.c.ked up, and distended nostrils.

I stood stupefied. How came the Baron Zimmer to be in this dense, terrifying wilderness at such an hour and such a time,--what was he doing here? Had he lost his way? The most contradictory conjectures succeeded each other in my brain, and I knew not where to pause, when the Baron's horse began to neigh. At the sound, the master raised his head:

"Well, Rappel, what now?"

Then, in his turn, he gazed in our direction, straining his eyes to make us out in the darkness. That pale face, with its clear-cut features, delicate lips, and heavy black eyebrows, gathered in a frown, would have struck me with admiration under any other circ.u.mstances, but now an indefinable feeling of apprehension took possession of me, and I was filled with vague anxiety. Suddenly, the young man cried:

"Who goes there?"

"I, monsieur," replied Sperver quickly, at the same time advancing towards him; "I, Sperver, steward of the Count of Nideck!"

A strange expression pa.s.sed across the Baron's features, but not a muscle of his face quivered. He rose to his feet, gathering the folds of his cloak more closely about him. I drew towards me the horses and the hound, who suddenly began to howl as he had done on the night of my arrival at the Castle.

Who of us is not subject in some degree to superst.i.tious fears? At the sound of Lieverle's menacing growls, I felt a dread of I know not what, and I shuddered instinctively. Sperver and the Baron stood at a distance of fifty yards from each other; the first immovable in the middle of the gorge, with his rifle resting against his shoulder; the other, standing erect before the entrance of the cave, holding his head high, and surveying us with a haughty glance.

"What do you want here?" he asked defiantly.

"We are looking for a woman," replied the huntsman; "a woman who comes each year prowling about the Castle of Nideck, and we have orders to seize her."

"Has she robbed?"

"No."

"Has she committed murder?"

"No, monsieur."

"Then what do you want of her? What right have you to pursue her?"

Sperver straightened up, and fixing his gray eye on the Baron:

"And you? What right have you over her?" he asked with a strange smile; "for she is there. I can see her at the back of the cavern. By whose authority do you meddle with our affairs? Do you not know that we are at this moment within the domains of Nideck, and that we administer all forms of justice at our pleasure?"

The young man grew paler yet, and replied shortly:

"I am not accountable to you for any act of mine."

"Take care," replied Sperver; "I am acting in the name of my master, the Count of Nideck, and am but doing my duty. You will have to answer for any interference on your part."

"Your duty!" exclaimed the young man, with a bitter smile; "if you speak of your duty, you may force me to tell you mine."