"Ah, we are getting on! How fearfully cold! Lieverle, what is the matter?
what have you found now?"
Unfortunately Fox and Rappel were beginning to tire; they sank deeper in the snow and no longer neighed joyfully.
And added to this the endless mazes of the Black Forest wearied us too.
The old woman affected this solitary region greatly; here she had trotted round a deserted charcoal-burner"s hut; farther on she had torn out the roots that projected from a moss-grown rock; there she had sat at the foot of a tree, and that very recently--not more than two hours since, for the track was quite fresh--and our hope and our ardour rose together.
But the daylight was slowly fading away!
Very strangely, ever since our departure from Nideck we had met neither wood-cutters, nor charcoal-burners, nor timber-carriers. At this season the silence and solitude of the Black Forest is as deep as that of the North-American steppes.
At five o"clock it was almost dark. Sperver halted and said--
"Fritz, my lad, we have started a couple of hours too late. The she-wolf has had too long a start. In ten minutes it will be as dark as a dungeon.
The best way would be to reach Roche Creuse, which is twenty minutes"
ride from here, light a good fire, and eat our provisions and empty our flasks. When the moon is up we will follow the trail again, and unless the old hag is the foul fiend himself, ten to one we shall find her dead and stiff with cold against the foot of a tree, for nothing can live after such a tremendous tramp in weather like this. Sebalt is the best walker in the Black Forest, and he would not have stood it. Come, Fritz, what is your opinion?"
"I am not so mad as to think differently. Besides, I am perishing with hunger!"
"Well, let us start again."
He took the lead and pa.s.sed into a close and narrow glen between two precipitous faces of rock. The fir-trees met over our heads; under our feet ran a mere thread of the stream, and from time to time some ray from above was dimly reflected in the depths below and glinted with a dull leaden light.
The darkness was now such that I thought it prudent to drop my bridle on Rappel"s neck. The steps of our horses on the slippery gravel awoke strange discordant sounds like the screaming of monkeys at play. The echoes from rock to rock caught up and repeated every sound, and in the distance a tiny s.p.a.ce of deep blue widened as we advanced; it was the issue from the glen.
"Fritz," said Sperver, "we are in the bed of the Tunkelbach. This is the wildest spot in the Black Forest. The end is a pit called La Marmite du Grand Gueulard, the muckle-mouthed giant"s kettle. In the spring, when the snow is melting, the Tunkelbach hurls all its waters into it, a depth of two hundred feet. There is an awful uproar; the waters dash down and then splash up again and fall in spray on all the hills around. Sometimes it even fills the Roche Creuse, but just now it must be as dry as a powder-flask."
Whilst I was listening to Gideon"s explanations I was at the same time meditating upon this dark and fearful glen, and I reflected that the instinct which attracts the brutes into such retreats as these, far from the light of heaven, away from everything bright and cheerful, must partake of the nature of remorse. Those animals which love the open sunshine--the goat aloft upon a high conspicuous peak, the horse flying across the wide plain, the dog capering round his master, the bird bathed in sunlight--all breathe joy and happiness; they bask, and sing, and rejoice in dancing and delight. The kid nibbling the tender gra.s.s under the shade of the great trees is as poetic an object as the shelter that it loves; the fierce boar is as rough as the tangled brakes through which he loves to run his huge bristly back; the eagle is as proud and lofty as the sky-piercing crags on which he perches as his home; the lion is as majestic as the arching vaults of the caves where he makes his den; but the wolf, the fox, and the ferret seek the darkness that conforms to their ugly deeds; fear and remorse dog their steps.
I was still dreamily pursuing these thoughts, and I was beginning to feel the keen air moving upon my face, for we were approaching the outlet of the gorge, when all at once a red light struck the rock a hundred feet above us, purpling the dark green of the fir-trees and lighting up the wreaths of snow.
"Ha!" cried Sperver, "we have got her at last!"
My heart leaped; we stood, closely pressed, the one against the other.
The dog growled low and deep.
"Cannot she escape?" I asked in a whisper.
"No; she is caught like a rat in a trap. There is no way out of La Marmite du Grand Gueulard but this, and everywhere all round the rocks are two hundred feet high. Now, vile hag, I hold you!"
He alighted in the ice-cold stream, handing me his bridle. I caught in the silence the click of the lock of his gun, and that slight noise threw me into a tremor of apprehension.
"Sperver, what are you about?"
"Don"t be alarmed; it is only to frighten her."
"Very well, then, but no blood. Remember what I told you--the ball which strikes the Pest slays the count!"
"Don"t trouble yourself," was the answer.
He went away without further parley. I could hear the splash of his feet in the water; then I saw his tall figure emerge at the opening of the dark glen, black against a purple background. He stood five minutes motionless. Attentive, bending forward, I looked and listened, still moving onward. As he returned I was but a few yards from him.
"Hark!" he whispered mysteriously. "Look there!"
At the end of the hollow, scooped out perpendicularly like a quarry in the mountain side, I saw a bright fire unrolling its golden spires beneath the vault of a cave, and before the fire sat a man with his hands clasped about his knees, whom I recognised by his dress as the Baron de Zimmer-Bluderich.
He sat motionless, his forehead resting between his hands. Behind him lay a dark gaunt form extended on the ground. Farther on, his horse, half lost in the shade, reared his neck, gazed on us with eyes fixed, ears erect, and nostrils distended.
I stood rooted to the ground.
How did the Baron de Zimmer happen to be in that lonely wilderness at such a time? What did he want here? Had he lost his way?
The most contradictory conjectures were pa.s.sing in confusion through my excited brain, and I could not tell what conclusion to arrive at, when the baron"s horse began to neigh, and the master raised his head.
"Well, Donner, what is the matter now?" said he.
Then he, too, directed his gaze our way, straining his eyes through the darkness.
That pale face, with its strongly-marked features, thin lips, and thick black eyebrows meeting together, and forming a deep hollow on the brow in the form of a long vertical wrinkle, would have struck me with admiration at any other time; while now an inexplicable anxiety laid hold of me, and I was filled with vague apprehensions.
Suddenly the young man exclaimed--
"Who goes there?"
"I, monseigneur," answered Sperver, coming forward--"Sperver, chief huntsman to the lord of Nideck."
A flash shot from the baron"s quick eye; not a muscle of his countenance quailed. He rose to his feet, gathering his pelisse over his shoulders. I drew towards me the horses and the dog, and this animal suddenly began howling fearfully.
Is not every one, more or less, subject to superst.i.tious fears? At these dismal sounds I trembled, and a cold shudder crept through my whole body.
Sperver and the baron stood at a distance of fifty yards from each other; the first immovable in the midst of the deep glen, his gun unslung from his shoulder, the other erect upon the level platform outside of the cave, carrying his head high, fixing on us a haughty eye and a proud look of superiority.
"What do you want here?" he asked aggressively.
"We are looking for a woman," replied the old poacher--"a woman who comes every year prowling about Nideck, and our orders are to take her."
"Has she stolen anything?"
"No."
"Has she committed murder?"
"No, monseigneur."
"Then what do you want with her? What right have you to pursue her?"
"And you--what right have you over her?" answered Sperver with an ironical smile. "See, there she is. I can see her at the bottom of the cave. What right have you to meddle with our affairs? Don"t you know that we are here in the domains of Nideck, and that we administer justice and execute our own decrees?"