The Silent Barrier Part 19

"Yes," he said. "I understand perfectly. You and I might sing _lieder ohne worte_, Miss Wynton. I have known these summer gales to last four days; but pray do not be alarmed," for Helen nearly dropped her cup in quick dismay; "my own opinion is that we shall have a delightful afternoon. Of course, I am a discredited prophet. Ask Barth."

The guide, hearing his name mentioned, glanced at them, though he was engaged at the moment in taking the wrappings off a quant.i.ty of bread, cold chicken, and slices of ham and beef. He agreed with Bower. The barometer stood high when they left the hotel. He thought, as all men think who live in the open, that "the sharper the blast the sooner it's past."

"Moreover," broke in Karl, who refused to be left out of the conversation, "Johann Klucker's cat was sitting with its back to the stove last evening."

This bit of homely philosophy brought a ripple of laughter from Helen, whereupon Karl explained.

"Cats are very wise, _fraulein_. Johann Klucker's cat is old.

Therefore she is skilled in reading the tokens of the weather. A cat hates wind and rain, and makes her arrangements accordingly. If she washes herself smoothly, the next twelve hours will be fine. If she licks against the grain, it will be wet. When she lies with her back to the fire, there will surely be a squall. When her tail is up and her coat rises, look out for wind."

"Johann Klucker's cat has settled the dispute," said Bower gravely in English. "A squall it is,--a most suitable prediction for a cat,--and I am once more rehabilitated in your esteem, I hope?"

A cold iridescence suddenly illumined the gloomy interior of the hut.

It gave individuality to each particle of sleet whirling past the door. Helen thought that the sun had broken through the storm clouds for an instant; but Bower said quietly:

"Are you afraid of lightning?"

"Not very. I don't like it."

"Some people collapse altogether when they see it. Perhaps when forewarned you are forearmed."

A low rumble boomed up the valley, and the mountain echoes muttered in solemn chorus.

"We are to be spared none of the scenic accessories, then?" said Helen.

"None. In fact, you will soon see and hear a thunder storm that would have delighted Gustave Dore. Please remember that it cannot last long, and that this hut has been built twenty years to my knowledge."

Helen sipped her coffee, but pushed away a plate set before her by Barth. "If you don't mind, I should like the door wide open," she said.

"You prefer to lunch later?"

"Yes."

"And you wish to face the music--is that it?"

"I think so."

"Let me remind you that Jove's thunderbolts are really forged on the hilltops."

"I am here; so I must make the best of it. I shall not scream, or faint, if that is what you dread."

"I dread nothing but your anger for not having turned back when a retreat was possible. I hate turning back, Miss Wynton. I have never yet withdrawn from any enterprise seriously undertaken, and I was determined to share your first ramble among my beloved hills."

Another gleam of light, bluer and more penetrating than its forerunner, lit the brown rafters of the _cabane_. It was succeeded by a crash like the roar of ma.s.sed artillery. The walls trembled. Some particles of mortar rattled noisily to the floor. A strange sound of rending, followed by a heavy thud, suggested something more tangible than thunderbolts. Bower kicked the door and it swung inward.

"An avalanche," he said. "Probably a rockfall too. Of course, the hut stands clear of the track of unpleasant visitors of that description."

Helen had not expected this courageous bearing in a man of Bower's physical characteristics. Hitherto she had regarded him as somewhat self indulgent, a Sybarite, the product of modernity in its London aspects. His demeanor in the train, in the hotel, bespoke one accustomed to gratify the flesh, who found all the world ready to pander to his desires. Again she was conscious of that instinctive trustfulness a woman freely reposes in a dominant man. Oddly enough, she thought of Spencer in the same breath. An hour earlier, had she been asked which of these two would command her confidence during a storm, her unhesitating choice would have favored the American. Now, she was at least sure that Bower's coolness was not a.s.sumed. His att.i.tude inspired emulation. She rose and went to the door.

"I want to see an avalanche," she cried. "Where did that one fall?"

Bower followed her. He spoke over her shoulder. "On Monte Roseg, I expect. The weather seems to be clearing slightly. This tearing wind will soon roll up the mist, and the thunder will certainly start another big rock or a snowslide. If you are lucky, you may witness something really fine."

A dazzling flash leaped over the glacier. Although the surrounding peaks were as yet invisible through the haze of sleet and vapor, objects near at hand were revealed with uncanny distinctness. Each frozen wave on the surface of the ice was etched in sharp lines. A cl.u.s.ter of seracs on a neighboring icefall showed all their mad chaos.

The blue green chasm of a huge creva.s.se was illumined to a depth far below any point to which the rays of the sun penetrated. On the neighboring slope of Monte Roseg the crimson and green and yellow mosses were given sudden life against the black background of rock.

Every boulder here wore a somber robe. They were stark and grim. The eye instantly caught the contrast to their gray-white fellows piled on the lower moraine or in the bed of the Orlegna.

Helen was quick to note the new tone of black amid the vividly white patches of snow. She waited until the deafening thunder peal was dying away in eerie cadences. "Why are the rocks black here and almost white in the valley?" she asked.

"Because they are young, as rocks go," was the smiling answer. "They have yet to pa.s.s through the mill. They will be battered and bruised and polished before they emerge from the glacier several years hence and a few miles nearer peace. In that they resemble men. 'Pon my word, Miss Wynton, you have caused me to evolve a rather poetic explanation of certain gray hairs I have noticed of late among my own raven locks."

"You appear to know and love these hills so well that I wonder--if you will excuse a personal remark--I wonder you ever were able to tear yourself away from them."

"I have missed too much of real enjoyment in the effort to ama.s.s riches," he said slowly. "Believe me, that thought has held me since--since you and I set foot on the Forno together."

"But you knew? You were no stranger to the Alps? I am beginning to understand that one cannot claim kinship with the high places until they stir the heart more in storm than in sunshine. When I saw all these giants glittering in the sun like knights in silver armor, I described them to myself as gloriously beautiful. Now I feel that they are more than that,--they are awful, pitiless in their indifference to frail mortals; they carry me into a dim region where life and death are terms without meaning."

"Yes, that is the true spirit of the mountains. I too used to look on them with affectionate reverence, and you recall the old days.

Perhaps, if I am deemed worthy, you will teach me the cult once more."

He bent closer. Helen became conscious that in her enthusiasm she had spoken unguardedly. She moved away, slightly but unmistakably, a step or two out into the open, for the hut on that side was not exposed to the bitter violence of the wind.

"It is absurd to imagine us in a change of role," she cried. "I should play the poorest travesty of Mentor to your Telemachus. Oh! What is that?"

While she was speaking, another blinding flare of lightning flooded moraine and glacier and pierced the veil of sleet. Her voice rose almost to a shriek. Bower sprang forward. His left hand rested rea.s.suringly across her shoulders.

"Better come inside the hut," he began.

"But I saw someone--a white face--staring at me down there!"

"It is possible. There is no cause for fear. A party may have crossed from Italy. There would be none from the Maloja at this hour."

Helen was actually trembling. Bower drew her a little nearer. He himself was unnerved, a prey to wilder emotions than she could guess till later days brought a fuller understanding. It was a mad trick of fate that threw the girl into his embrace just then, for another far-flung sheet of fire revealed to her terrified vision the figures of Spencer and Stampa on the rocks beneath. With brutal candor, the same flash showed her nestling close to Bower. For some reason, she shuddered. Though the merciful gloom of the next few seconds restored her faculties, her face and neck were aflame. She almost felt that she had been detected in some fault. Her confusion was not lessened by hearing a muttered curse from her companion. Careless of the stinging sleet, she leaped down to a broad tier of rock below the plateau of the hut and cried shrilly:

"Is that really you, Mr. Spencer?"

A more tremendous burst of thunder than any yet experienced dwarfed all other sounds for an appreciable time. The American scrambled up, almost at her feet, and stood beside her. Stampa came quick on his heels, moving with a lightness and accuracy of foothold amazing in one so lame.

"Just me, Miss Wynton. Sorry if I have frightened you, but our old friend here was insistent that we should hurry. I have been tracking you since nine o'clock."

Spencer's words were nonchalantly polite. He even raised his cap, though the fury of the ice laden blast might well have excused this formal act of courtesy. Helen was still blushing so painfully that she became angry with herself, and her voice was hardly under control.

Nevertheless, she managed to say:

"How kind and thoughtful of you! I am all right, as you see. Mr. Bower and the guide were able to bring me here before the storm broke. We happened to be standing near the door, watching the lightning. When I caught a glimpse of you I was so stupidly startled that I screamed and almost fell into Mr. Bower's arms."

Put in that way, it did not sound so distressing. And Spencer had no desire to add further difficulties to a situation already awkward.

"Guess you scared me too," he said. "I suppose, now we are at the hut, Stampa will not object to my waiting five minutes or so before we start for home."