"Beata," said Donatus, "if she is not here either!--" he broke off, the terrible thought choked his utterance.
And on they went again. He listened for the least sound that might betray the presence of a travelling encampment and she strained her keen sight for his sake; but sharp as were her eyes, quick as was his ear, there was nothing to be seen, nothing stirring. They had traversed the whole valley.
"I can hear the rush of water, are we not near the Holy Wells?" asked Donatus.
"Yes, here we are," said Beata, trembling as if she feared to tell him.
"And there is no one to be seen?"
"No one," she said hardly audibly.
"All merciful G.o.d!--and I can go no farther." Donatus sank to the ground on the spot where he was standing, and hid his face in his clasped hands.
"Oh, good G.o.d! what misery!" lamented the girl. "Lie here a while, I will go back to the smelting houses, and get some news of the d.u.c.h.ess."
"Beata, you can walk no farther," sighed Donatus.
"For you I can do anything," she said boldly and steadily, and soon the blind man lost the sound of her steps in the distance. An endless term of waiting in motionless patience ensued, and the agonised watcher felt the dull silence around like the influence of a petrifying basilisk, slowly tormenting its victim to death. He listened and listened, and yet could hear nothing but the singing of the blood in his ears, the ceaseless trickle of the three streams close at hand, and the distant thunder of the waterfalls that fling themselves from the precipices of the Konigspitze. From time to time his thoughts became confused; he heard the noisy travelling-train of the d.u.c.h.ess approaching, he called to her what his errand was, but she did not hear, he could not make himself intelligible and he tried to scream but he could not. The horses went over him, he felt their trampling feet, then he started up and felt all round him; the hard stones on which he was lying had bruised him all over, and the tramp of horses that he had fancied he heard was no more than the roar of the water. All was silent, and all remained silent. Then again a dread came over him lest Beata should never return, some harm might have befallen the child among the smelters--a half wild crew--and he, a miserable mere shade of a man, he could not save her, he must depend for succour on a weak and helpless woman. He loathed himself; could G.o.d take delight in such a miserable cripple? "Wretch, blind feeble wretch--die!" he groaned, and his limbs shook with fever. "Son of all misfortune, what are you alive for? That you may scatter abroad the seeds of misery which you bear in your bosom--" and then again fear for the child overcame him, and he shouted to the night, "Beata, Beata, where are you?" till once more his consciousness was clouded.
At last she bent over him, and softly called his name.
"Is it you, Beata?" he cried, starting up, and his trembling arms clasped her slender form as though he thought she might be a dream and would melt away. His hair clung to his brow, his breath came quickly, his face was flushed with incipient fever. Beata saw in a moment that he was ill, very ill.
"My dear master--I have brought a boy, the smelter"s son from the hut out yonder, and he will help me to carry you under his father"s roof, so that you may get some rest."
Donatus staggered to his feet. "No--no--I cannot rest--the d.u.c.h.ess, where is the d.u.c.h.ess?" he cried.
"We shall never catch her up, my poor master," said Beata hesitatingly.
"She set out at night on account of the heat--she has been gone an hour, and no one can tell me where."
"An hour!" shrieked Donatus. "That was the hour of my temptation--that was the hour that I wasted dreaming in the wood--the hour I let you sleep because as you slept your breath kept me spell-bound, and I forgot everything--everything depended on that one hour, and now it is lost--all lost--by my fault." He stood tottering and tried to take a few steps. "After her--I must go after her--"
"How can you, my dear master--consider, they are on horseback and have an hour"s start of us. Besides you are ill and cannot stir from the spot."
"Oh Lord G.o.d! work a miracle--Thou hast done so many for others--do one for us! Help me, bear me up--we shall overtake them--only go on, go on!" he panted; and he sank into the arms of Beata and the boy. "The clouds, the clouds, they are strong enough, they will bear me--no, stop, I am going too fast--Heaven and earth! I am giddy--do not let me fall."
"Oh, dear master--!" Beata burst into tears and sank on her knees under her heavy burden, resting his head in her lap. The boy, a s.m.u.tty fellow with dull, staring eyes, stood by stupidly looking on.
"Go and fetch your father to help us," said Beata.
The boy shook his head. "Father cannot leave the ore till the furnace is tapped," he said.
"Well, go and beg him to come as soon as he can," and the boy slowly strolled away.
The towering peaked walls of the Ortler--Madatsch, and the glaciers of Trafoy--stared pitilessly down on the forsaken pair--there was not a projecting rock, not a cave that could offer shelter to the sick man.
They stood up appallingly bare and steep and almost perpendicular, like giant walls built up to protect the world"s Holy of Holies. And there it was too--that Holy of Holies. The three Holy Wells poured out in the moon-shine like rivulets of light, from the hearts of the wooden images of the Virgin mother, the Redeemer and the Baptist, which were protected by a little wooden structure which might well afford shelter to the sick man also. There--if she could only get him there; and she whispered in his ear, imploring and urging him till at last he heard her and began to move.
"Dear master--if you could only go a few steps farther--there flows the holy water--that will make you well--"
The sick man caught her words. "Where--where?" he said.
"Come--only come, I will help you up--there, now one step--one more--we are there now." With a tremendous effort she had got him there, and she let him softly slide down on to the soft ground under the shrine in front of the Madonna.
"You are kneeling before our Mother Mary," she whispered reverently, and she bathed his brow and eyes with the miraculous water.
"Oh, Holy Virgin! have mercy upon us," she prayed, and she held up the folded hands of the blind man who no longer had strength enough to raise them in prayer.
"Have mercy upon us!" he stammered, after her "_Rosa mystica, maris stella, stella matutina_"; his feeble lips went through the thousand-times repeated rosary, and then his head sank back in the girl"s lap, and he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER VII.
Nine times had the sun risen and set without the sick man"s darkened spirit being conscious of it. It is true that his blinded eyes would not have told him even if he had been conscious, but the measure of time of which men have an instinctive idea would have served him even in his darkness, and have driven the tortured man home to his imperilled brethren. From time to time indeed he had roused a little, and had asked the time, but the girl--G.o.d will forgive her--had deceived him; had taken advantage of his blindness, and had made him believe he had slept but an hour, while a whole day or a whole night had gone by. She meant it well, that he might be content to rest, and not get so ill as to die. So each time he had laid his head down again, and let himself be persuaded--"till it was day"--to go no farther. And thus it had nine times been day, and nine times night. To-day for the first time the rage of his fever was subdued, and his reawakened consciousness began to light up his pale face.
"Beata, are you there?" he asked.
"Yes, master."
"I believe you have not slept the whole night through--whenever I have called you you have been awake. Is it not yet day?"
"Yes, dear master, very soon; but rest a little longer."
Donatus felt around him; he was surprised to find a soft straw-bed under him, and by his side a wall.
"Where am I?"
"In the smelter"s hut; we carried you in that you might be sheltered from wind and weather."
"Then we are among men?"
"Yes, they are poor folks, but compa.s.sionate and helpful."
"How many are they?"
"A man and his son."
"Do you think the boy could conduct me to Marienberg?"
"To Marienberg?" said Beata, turning pale.
He did not answer for some time, then he said,
"It is so sultry and heavy in here; if you would do me a last service, help me up and lead me out into G.o.d"s open air that I may collect my senses."
"You are still too weak to stand; have a little patience," she begged.