"Wilt thou not first kiss thy dead sweetheart?"
Sange Moarte did not even turn his head round, but drew his hand out of his mother"s and went with the two strange men towards the darkening woods.
All that night the adventurers were traversing a deep dell. Gigantic perpendicular rocks rose up on each side of them, only above their heads shimmered a narrow streak of starry sky.
Towards morning they found themselves among the Carpathian Alps.
It was a dazzling spectacle. In the distance diamond-peaked crystal mountains covered with white snow-fields, striped here and there by dark-green lines of pine forest. Close beside them is a basalt rock, consisting of angular columns as large as towers, standing side by side like the pipes of a gigantic organ, with their summits crowned by wreaths of round trees. A white, semi-transparent cloud floats across this rock, hiding all but its summit and its base. From time to time a lightning-flash darts from this cloud, and the reverberated echoes of the thunder-peals resound like long-drawn-out chords from this majestic organ of Nature"s own workmanship.
Over yonder, a mountain chasm suddenly comes into view, where two rocky fragments, whose rugged surfaces seem to exactly correspond, stand face to face. Through this rocky chasm, many hundred feet below, rushes a stray branch of the icy Szamos, disappearing among the thick oak woods which cover its banks.
In one place the rocks form a flight of steps, steps never fashioned for the foot of man, for each of them is as high as a tower; in another place the rocky boulders are piled one on the top of the other, in such a way that if the undermost block were disturbed, the whole of the enormous ma.s.s would fall into a differently-shaped group.
Everything indicates that here the dominion of the world and of man ends. Not a single human habitation is visible from the dizzy heights; even vegetation is rare and scanty; on every side bald rocks and gaping chasms, among which the mountain torrents toss and tumble; only the wild goat is there to be seen leaping from crag to crag.
"Which is the way now?" asked Clement of his guide, casting an anxious glance at his surroundings, in which the possibility of hopelessly losing oneself was more than probable.
"Trust only to me," said Sange Moarte, and he guided them through the uninhabited wilderness with the unerring precision of instinct. In places where it seemed impossible to go a step further, he always found a path. He recollected every root or shrub which could serve as a support to clamberers down the mountain side; every fallen tree which spanned the abyss, every narrow ledge which could only be pa.s.sed by bending forward over the precipice and holding fast behind to the fissures of the rock, was familiar to him; in short he seemed quite at home in this interminable labyrinth.
"We are near," he cried suddenly, after clambering up a steep rocky wall and surveying the horizon; then he held out his hands to his companions and drew them up after him.
A new spectacle then presented itself.
The opposite slope of the rocky ridge which they had just ascended was perfectly smooth and shiny, and encompa.s.sed the whole region in a semi-circle, forming a sort of basin, at the very bottom of which--and it was six hundred feet deep--lay a little mountain lake, the dark-green waters of which perpetually boiled and bubbled, though not a breath of air was stirring: perhaps it felt the ebb and flow of ocean. The opposite side of the rocky basin was formed by a gigantic chain of mountains, fringed only at its base by fir trees, and at the point where the two mountain systems met, a small stream in a deep bed trickled into the little mountain lake. The ma.s.ses of ice which had fallen into the valley formed a crystal vault over this stream.
"Whither are we going?" asked Clement, aghast.
"To the source of that brook," returned Sange Moarte. "It has dug its way through the ice, and by following its course we shall come to the place we seek."
"But how are we to get there? This rocky slope is as smooth as a mirror; if a man begins sliding down it there is no stopping till he plumps into the lake."
"You have only to take care. We must lie on our backs and glide down sideways. Here and there you will find a tuft of Alpine roses to cling on to. But you"ve nothing to fear if you slide down barefoot. Do as I do."
A hair-bristling pastime truly!
Taking off their sandals they held on by their hands and feet to the smooth, shelving, stony wall, at the foot of which lay the darkly-gleaming, fathomless lake.
They had already slided half-way down the incline, when from the mountain opposite arose a m.u.f.fled, mysterious roar. They felt the cliff on which they lay quaking beneath them.
"Ha! stay where you are," cried Sange Moarte, looking back at them. "An avalanche from the mountain opposite is approaching."
And at the very next moment they could see a white ball descending from the immeasurably distant heights, plunging with mad haste down the mountain slope, tearing away with it whole ma.s.ses of rock and uprooted pines, swelling every moment into a more tremendous bulk, and dashing down the decline in leaps of two hundred feet at a time into the valley below.
"Heaven defend us!" cried the terrified Clement, clutching his guide with one hand and holding on to the rock with the other. "It is coming this way, and will overwhelm us all."
"Keep still," cried Sange Moarte, seeing them inclined to clamber up again and thus expose themselves to the danger of a fall. "The avalanche will take the direction of that block of rock standing in its way, and will there either stop or disperse."
And indeed they could see that the snow-slip, now grown colossal, was making for a projecting point of rock which was dwarf-like in comparison. Every other sound was lost in the thunder of the avalanche.
And now the huge snow-ball bounded upon the obstructive rock, and fell p.r.o.ne across it with a terrific thud, which shook the whole mountain to its very base.
For a moment the whole region was enveloped in a cloud of steam-like snow-spray, and after the final crash the thunder of the avalanche ceased. But immediately afterwards it began again with a frightful crackling; the weight of the snowy ma.s.s had uprooted the obstructing rock, and whirling down with it in dizzy rotations, plunged perpendicularly into the lake below.
The agitated lake, lashed out of its basin on both sides, rose in an enormous wave, three hundred feet high, up to the very spot where the bold climbers were clinging to the naked rock, and after poising in the air for a second, like a huge transparent green column, broke and fell back into the lake, which very slowly subsided.
"Now we will go on our way," said Sange Moarte. "The rock is moist now, and the descent will be all the easier."
After the lapse of half-an-hour, the wanderers found themselves at the mouth of a stream.
A wondrous corridor lay open before them. The brook sprang from a hot spring, which, after racing down the deep valleys, buried itself beneath icebergs and snowdrifts. But the hot water had bored a pa.s.sage through the ice, constantly melting the frozen ma.s.s around it with its warm stream, so that only the thick outermost layer remained, which, constantly renewed by the cold air without, and as constantly dissolved by the hot stream within, grew into a sort of transparent crystal arcade with huge dependent glittering stalact.i.tes above the stream.
Through this channel Sange Moarte now led his companions.
Clement could not but call to mind the fabulous fairy palace where spellbound mortals only see the light of day through transparent waters.
Wading thus in the bed of the stream, they reached a point where the bright arcade began to grow dark. Its transparent roof grew thicker and thicker, pa.s.sing gradually into an ever deeper blue, till at last it became quite black, and the murmuring of the stream was the wanderers"
only guide. As they advanced, with their hose tucked up to their knees, into the ever-darkening darkness, they felt the water getting hotter and hotter, till at last they heard a hissing sound and saw once more the daylight streaming through the rocky chasm, through which the brook rushed down into its subterraneous cave.
Here, with the help of some dangling shrubs, they scaled the hillside to avoid the onslaught of the boiling spring, and after a brief exertion found themselves on the other side of the mountain, in a deep, well-like valley.
This is the _Gradina Dracului_.
It is a perfectly round dell, shut in on every side by a wall of perpendicular cliffs more than six hundred feet high. Whoever wishes to look down from above, must approach the edge of the rock lying on his stomach, and even then must have a good head not to be seized by vertigo. At the bottom of this dell the flowers have an amaranthine bloom. When the snow is falling thickly all around, and the ice is sparkling everywhere else, here in the depths of the hardest winter may then be seen those dark-green flowers with broad, indented petals, and those little round-leaved trees the like of which are to be met with nowhere else in this district. Just at this time too the leather-leaved _Nymphaea_ opens its light-yellow calices here; the gra.s.s, both summer and winter, is of the brightest green; and the wild laurel climbs high up into the crevices of the rocks, and casts its red berries down into the valley, when Nature all around is cold and dead.
Throughout the winter this dell is clothed with the rarest flowers.
Therefore the Wallach calls it "the Devil"s Garden," and fears to approach it.
But the whole wonder has quite a natural cause.
In the depth of the dell a hot mineral spring bubbles up in a cave, never coming to light, but soaking all the circ.u.mambient soil through and through, and it is because these warm waters possess a flora of their own that these unknown shrubs and flowers are for ever blooming in the neighbourhood of the vivifying element. The whole thing is a splendid open-air orangery in the midst of snowstorms and icebergs.
Sange Moarte beckoned to his comrades to follow him. A feverish impatience possessed him, and when he had advanced a few steps into the cavern, he pointed with trembling hand at a dark recess, in which an iron door was visible.
"What is it?" cried Clement, clutching his sabre. "Does anybody dwell here?"
"Yes," rejoined Sange Moarte (his blood at that moment seemed to be on fire, and the veins of his temples stood out like cords). "There, in that water-basin, she is wont to bathe. There have I watched her, from day to day, without ever daring to approach her," stammered he, in a whisper that was scarcely audible, but full of the most pa.s.sionate ardour.
"Who?" asked the Patrol-officer, much amazed.
"Oh! the fairy," stammered the Wallach, with trembling lips, and he buried his glowing head in his hands.
"What"s all this about?" said Clement, turning to Zulfikar. ""Tis not a fairy that I"m after but a panther!"
"Pst! a key is turning in the lock," cried Zulfikar. "Away back into the dark cave!"
The two men had to drag Sange Moarte away from the iron gate, which a moment afterwards opened noiselessly, and a girlish form stepped forth leading a panther by a golden chain.
Sange Moarte was right in calling her a fairy.