I left him to set his avalanche in motion while I went to gather dry twigs and leaves and make a heap of them. Meanwhile Valentine declaimed to the clouds.
"What a spectacle! The whole realm a sea! We stand alone, like the co-operating Demiurges at the creation, in the face of chaos."
"Have you got your troupe together?" I inquired, thus bringing him down at once from his pedestal.
"My troupe? That"s just what I am going about now. Brutus must play the fool until his day has come. But when once the hour of retribution arrives, we will rise as one man and win back our outraged liberties."
"With my bludgeon, I suppose?"
"Oh, not with that sort of thing," said friend Valentine, with haughty condescension. "I have no secret to hide from you. An American hero of freedom has invented a weapon which, placed in the hand of a simple citizen, will give him an irresistible advantage over the hireling soldiery. Its English name is "revolver." I have one by me. Thanks to my acquaintances beyond the ocean, I have managed to provide myself with it. Look here!"
With that he produced from his side pocket a pistol, the like of which I had never seen before. It was the Colt revolver, for discharging five shots. You loaded it in front, and with this object in view, you had to shove out the cartridge cylinder and sprinkle powder out of the powder-flask in every loop-hole; at the end of the bullet was a nail, which had to be made firm with a cork-stopper, then the bullet had to be driven into the barrel by means of a hammer and ramrod, then the cartridge cylinder had to be fastened down again into its place, and pyramids of priming powder piled on the top of it--while the enemy was supposed to be looking on all the time and watching good-naturedly to see what would come of it all.
Friend Valentine had immense confidence in his wondrous firearm.
"You can see that I am prepared for every conceivable emergency. My faith, I will sell my life dearly! I may tell _you_, for you will not betray me. Beneath this Pagan Altar is a cave, the existence of which is known only to the initiated. I have selected it for my hiding-place.
When the chase against me begins, and a whole brigade of gendarmes marches out to seize me, I will creep into this cave; victuals and brandy for a whole week are already there for me; let them riot round me then as they like."
I could not help laughing at these wise precautions. But friend Valentine"s explanations became still more fiery.
"My friend! a single narrow little path leads to this cave. The bears used possibly to resort thither in the days when bears camped in the beech districts. If they attempt to storm me there, I can defend myself with this revolver against a whole host."
All this time I had been employed in piling up a nice little heap of dry twigs and leaves, which I now set on fire with my flint and steel.
Friend Valentine caught me nervously by the hand.
"What are you doing, my friend?"
"Lighting a fire, my friend."
"Why, my friend?"
"To cook bacon with, my friend."
"They will see the blaze of our fire from below."
"How _can_ they see when the mist is so thick there?"
He admitted that I was right, and allowed me to ignite my heap, which immediately began to crackle merrily.
Meanwhile, friend Valentine went and stood on the edge of the Precipice Stone to watch the mist, and from time to time informed me of the changes of scene that were going on: now the mists were beginning to break, now they were rising, the houses would be visible almost immediately.
And all the time I was toasting slices of bread by the fire, and after that slices of bacon, allowing the bacon fat to drip gradually down and soak through the toast with a deftness that would have done honour to a professional cook.
Bessy took it into her head to follow my example.
"Give me the bread and bacon out of the knapsack," said she to Valentine.
"But what necessity for it is there now?"
"I must have it at once."
And with that she went up to him and began rummaging in the knapsack.
"Why, what a prosaic nature is yours!" said Valentine reproachfully to the lady. "At such a sublime moment, too, in the presence of such a glorious spectacle! Just look at that magnificent scene! The whole of the cloud of mist is rising like a stage curtain. The gigantic theatre appears like magic from behind the hanging cloudy tapestries. Behold the sunlit heights, the white shimmering houses. And now a fresh mountain-chain emerges crowned with dim forests. Just as if they were of ma.s.sive gold...."
"Give me the bacon, I say."
"My heart, my blood is thine, but ask me not for bacon! Look how the earth rises up before us; nothing but mountains, mountains, mountains!
Still nothing to be seen of the dome of Heaven! And that deep divine calm around us! Only from the distant forge resounds the measured thud of the sledge hammer, as though one heard the throbbing of the heart of the universe! And does not thine own heart beat faster in this sublime place?"
"It throbs, it throbs! Right sorely does it throb! But we"ll look at the august spectacle a little later."
"What! Not look when an instant like this is worth a world?"
The natural phenomenon before us really was very fine, as the whole misty cloud rose swiftly from the mountains, covering with a deep shadow the sky that up to that moment had been shining bright and blue before us, and at the same time unfolding before us the m.u.f.fled panorama of hill behind hill beneath our feet; the solar rays, like the broad diverging spokes of a huge wheel, shot down from the cloudy rifts with a milky sort of glare. It would really have been a majestic scene but for the false, disturbing pathos of friend Valentine.
"Nay, nay! I cannot view it standing on my feet! Here one should go down upon one"s knees. Here the G.o.ds themselves walk abroad!"
Valentine plumped down upon his knees, and because Bessy would not follow his example, he wound his arm around her and clasped her to his breast. She, however, was impatient at his insipid vapourings.
"You are just like that professor," said she, "who held up his oil-lamp against the moon that his guests might see her better."
"Elizabeth!" sighed the Celadon bitterly (Bessy was a name which could not be emphasized with sighs so well as Elizabeth), "dost thou not remember that solemn moment when we said to one another, "How sweet it would be to die together this instant"? Has not our common friend said (here he looked at me), "A good death is better than a bad life"? Come, let us verify that saying: wrapped in each other"s embrace, heart throbbing responsive to heart, a dizziness, a plunge forward from this rock, and then a delicious flight whose goal will be the stars!"
"Go away with you! Don"t make a fool of yourself! I have no wish to plunge into Heaven!"
"But I"ll bear thee thither with me like a Valkyrian. And thou, my friend, wilt immortalize our final catastrophe in a heroic ballad."
And with that he seized the lady by the arm, and rushed with her upon the steep rocky ledge.
"Hast thou said thy prayers to-day, Desdemona?"
Bessy looked towards me with a timid look. I pretended to observe nothing. What had I to do with these amorous pa.s.sages? I was frizzling bacon.
"Dost thou doubt me capable of dying with thee at this moment?" cried Valentine Balvanyossi, with his wig awry over his eyes.
Then the lady cried with a supplicating voice: "Nay; but help me, dear Maurice!"
"Very well, I _will_ help you," thought I; "I did it once before, so you say. Poets have long arms."
"Friend Valentine," said I, without rising from my squatting position beside the frizzling bacon, "don"t you see those two men with muskets coming up this way along the mountain path?"
"Wha-a-at, two m-m-men with mus-us-kets?" said the hero, his rumbling ba.s.s-baritone voice suddenly dwindling into a piping treble. "Where are they?" All his longing for death had instantly vanished, and he immediately released his victim from his embrace.
I indicated the approaching strangers with my toasting-fork. "There!"
Then he also saw them.