"Have you met a Benedictine?" said one of them, in a tone of authority.
"A Benedictine! what was he like?" asked Beata.
"We had taken him prisoner and he has vanished--his name is Porphyrius, he was tall and stout, and had blue eyes," said the man.
"That does not matter," interrupted his companion. "We will take every Benedictine we find, whether his eyes are blue or green. Our master Reichenberg gives a ducat for every cowl."
Beata turned pale, but she preserved her presence of mind.
"This morning I saw one at Saint Mary"s in Munsterthal; he was resting there, and meant to go on again at noon," she said with prudent forethought.
"Where to?"
"To the Engadine, I believe. If you make haste, you may easily overtake him."
"Good, forward then to Saint Mary"s," cried the first speaker.
"You had better come with us," cried his companion to the two wayfarers. "So stout a lad can surely fight, and so pretty a wench can surely kiss. We will take you on horseback, and when we have caught the shaveling we will make merry together out of the ducat. Come, little one, I will lift you into the saddle."
"Get away with you, we are not for the like of you; my brother is ill, I must get him home."
"Your brother is it? Then all the more you belong to me!" said the rider with a laugh.
"Do not come near me, I am a witch!" screamed Beata.
The man spurred his horse forward, and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h at her from his saddle. But she had quickly drawn a knife from the folds of her dress, and she plunged it into the horse"s flank, so that he started aside with a leap.
"Good G.o.d, she really is a witch!" cried the others. "Let us be off or she will bewitch our horses."
And thereupon the whole troop rode off; the danger was past.
"All praise to your cunning, Beata, you are as soft as a dove, and as wise as a serpent."
Beata supported herself, breathless, against his shoulder. "Oh, my lord--oh, my angel! If they had carried you off from me, and perhaps killed you--" she burst into convulsive sobs, and threw her arms round him as if even now he might be torn from her.
Donatus stood trembling in her embrace; then he felt that her knees failed her, and that she sank speechless before him.
"Beata, my child!" he said, kneeling down beside her. "What is the matter, what has bereft you of your strength for the first time since we have been together?"
"It is only the fright--it will soon pa.s.s off--in a moment--" but her voice died away, and she lost consciousness.
He felt for her drooping head, and laid it on his bosom; he rubbed her forehead and temples; a stream of unutterable feeling ran through him, a sweet compa.s.sion, a rapture of anxiety.
"Beata!" he cried, "poor stricken deer, wake up, listen to the voice of your friend. I cannot go to the stream to fetch you water as you did for me. I am blind and unable to return you even the smallest service for all you have done for me. Listen to my voice, sweet soul! wake up."
And she opened her eyes, and found her head resting on the breast of the man who to her was so sacred and dear, and she would fain have closed her eyes again, and have slept on into eternity; but obedient to his call, she collected her strength and answered, "My good master!"
"How are you?" he asked softly.
"I am quite well, I can go on now," she said, though her voice was weak.
He felt, however, that she was still exhausted, and required rest.
"No, my child," said he, "I have already made the most unreasonable demands on your strength. I should have a heart of stone if I could drive my poor lamb any farther. The rest that I would not give myself, I must grant to you," and he took off his cape, and laid it under her head for a pillow.
"There, rest for an hour, and repair the mischief that my negligence has occasioned."
"But you, my lord, what will you do if I go to sleep? For since I have lain down sleep weighs upon my eyelids like lead."
"I will watch over you, and though indeed my eyes are closed, my ear is sharp and will warn me if danger threatens."
"Give me your hand," she said, and as he gave it her she laid her head upon it, and fell asleep. The blind man sat by the sleeping child without moving.
"Now, Angels of Heaven, spread your wings over us," he prayed.
She slept soundly and calmly; exhausted nature drew refreshment from the dark fount of sleep.
He waited patiently for her awaking; he knew not how long a time had pa.s.sed, he could not see the sun"s place in the sky and his mind was so full of wandering thoughts, so steeped in the charm that the breath of the sleeping child cast round him, that he lost all estimate of time.
Suddenly he felt a burning ray of sunshine fall on his cheek, as sharp as a bee"s sting; a single ray that had pierced between the boughs from the westward. By this he knew that the sun was sinking; the sultriness of noon too had much diminished, and there was more life stirring in the brush-wood and in the air than during the midday heat. He perceived at once, by many vague and yet unmistakeable signs, that evening was drawing on, and he lightly touched the girl"s eyelids to feel if they still were closed. "Beata," he whispered, leaning over her, but the call had only a magical attraction; she turned towards him in her sleep, as a flower turns to the light. He felt her lips close to his and a thought flashed through his brain, a thought at once intoxicating and terrible. And yet, no, not a thought, only an involuntary impulse of his lips, as when a draught of water is withheld from a thirsty man. He shrunk in horror of himself; was he still capable of such emotion--he, the blind man, the ascetic, cut off from life and its joys? He drew back far from the tempting lips so that their breath could reach him no more. Why did his heart throb so violently? Was it from anxiety at the long time the child was sleeping? He was sparing the girl, and neglecting to rescue his brethren. Should he awake her?
No, she must awake soon of her own accord, and then they will make up for lost time all the quicker. By evening they will reach Trafoy, then he can speak with the d.u.c.h.ess at once and by night ride home again with the armed escort. But Beata! oh G.o.d what will become of her? Can he ever find it in his heart to turn her out, a wanderer on the earth?
"Sleep, poor child, that heavy hour will come soon enough," cried his tortured soul.
Far and wide all was as still as death. A sharp ear could hear the squirrels" little claws scratching against the branches, and the birds twittering in the tree-tops, while on the ground there was not a sound but the light foot of some wild animal or the rustle of a beetle in the gra.s.s. Donatus felt the dancing sunbeams that fell here and there between the trunks, he felt the cool breeze that came down from the nearer glaciers. Perhaps they were looking down through some cleared opening in the thicket, those royal, shining forms, and bathing the sleeping child in their broad reflected splendour! "How beautiful it must all be," was his involuntary thought, and he hid his aching brow in his hand. He felt again and again as if, like another Samson, he must break through the dark vault that imprisoned him, for every power and muscle and nerve in his body was in a state of tension; and in the next instant he sank back overwhelmed by the mere thought of the ineffectual effort. For those walls, intangible and incorporate, would yield to no earthly force; no earthly ray might pierce them even if the blind man stood in the very eye of the sun--that was over for ever. Now at this hour, when he was alone for the first time since meeting Beata, now he is conscious that it is the child"s presence that has this day kept him upright. For so soon as he is left to himself, despair lifts its dragon head and threatens to darken his soul with madness.
And he had to summon all his self-command to keep himself from crying out aloud, "Beata, wake and save me from myself!" At this moment the girl awoke and opened her eyes, as if she had heard the dumb cry for help that came from his struggling soul. Donatus was sitting motionless, his hands convulsively clasped and his head leaning against the trunk of a tree. She thought that he slept, overcome by fatigue, and she propped her head on her hand and silently contemplated the pale suffering face with the sunken closed eyelids, a still and sublime martyr"s face, while her heart overflowed in tears that coursed each other down her cheeks. She folded her hands in worship of him. What were earth and heaven to her, what was G.o.d even? All were contained in this one man. He was love, he was patience, he was goodness. In earth and Heaven there was none but he; and she rose to her knees softly, not to wake him as she thought, and prayed to him, the martyr, the blind man who could see no light but from whom all the light of her life proceeded. She gazed at his sunken eyes and unutterable pity came over her; he was fast asleep, he could not know--gradually--irresistibly--it took possession of her. She did not know what she was doing, nor even that she was doing it--her lips breathed a kiss on those closed lids; a soft, deep, tender kiss. He started up and pressed his hands to his eyes. "What has happened, what was that? Beata, you kissed me--on my eyes. Holy Father, what have you done?"
"Forgive me!" cried Beata, sinking into his arms almost distracted. "Or kill me, kill me, my lord, my angel, my deliverer?"
"Oh wonder of wonders! I see again! it is fire, red fire that I am gazing into. Woe is me!--you have opened my eyes, and I see that which I ought not to see. I see you Beata, just as you are, your tawny shining eyes that gaze at me so imploringly, your rosy mouth that kissed me so sweetly. I see your waving hair, I see your whole sweet figure down to your little feet that have followed me so faithfully, I see it all, and I would fain sink in those fathomless eyes, and bury my face in that soft hair and drink death from those sweet lips. What is this feeling that shakes me to the very stronghold and foundation of my being? All-powerful G.o.d, this is love--it has come, it has come! I have suffered in vain." And he clasped the tree-trunk against which he was leaning as if to chain himself to it by his own arms, so that he might not s.n.a.t.c.h the girl to his breast and sink with her in the overwhelming torrent of fire.
The child stood by trembling like a young sapling in a whirlwind; Donatus pressed his face against the bark of the tree and a few blood-stained tears ran down his cheeks. St. Benedict slept on stinging nettles when temptation approached him, and he, what should he do?
"Quench, oh quench the fire!" he groaned. "Let it rain, let the brooks overflow, oh G.o.d! to cool my fever. Water, Beata, for pity"s sake; lead me to the spring or I shall perish." The terrified girl took his robe, as if she dared not touch him again, and led him to the torrent which fell with a sudden leap over the rocks, foaming till it was as white as the glacier snow from whence it came. It had worn a deep channel in the earth into which it fell, and the spray leaped up again in a fountain.
The blind man flung himself into the icy glacier water, as if he were pursued by the fire-brands of h.e.l.l, and the cataract came splashing on to him, throwing him down; the cold waves of the pure and purifying element rushed over him with a deafening roar; the burning pulses of his blood turned to ice under it, his limbs grew rigid, and it penetrated to his very heart like the icy touch of death.
CHAPTER VI.
It was night; the white heads of the glaciers looked down like pale watchers into the silent and sleeping Trafoy Thal. There it lay, deep in the shadows of the sheltering mountain walls, the lonely little valley. Fragments and boulders of fallen rocks strewed the earth--a sea of stones--and only here and there a red glow shone in the darkness, the light of the smelting furnaces of which several were scattered about; not a living creature was to be seen far and near.
Tired to death and with bruised feet the lonely couple toiled through the stony chaos towards the still invisible green nook, where the miraculous waters of the three Holy Wells take their rise.
"Do you see anything?" asked Donatus in a weary tone, "all is so still--"
"I see nothing far and wide," answered the child.