This was more than the Professor could bear. The tempest that had been gathering strength during the last few minutes broke forth with fury, but it failed to affect Hans, who showed an amount of strategic capacity that would have done honour to his friend Michael. He talked fast and loud, edging his father, meanwhile, towards the opposite wall, and, when he thought him near enough, he suddenly seized him by the shoulders and turned him round.
"Hans, I tell you if you dare to----" Wehlau suddenly paused, for involuntarily he had glanced at the picture. He looked at it again, and then slowly approached it.
The young artist's eyes sparkled triumphantly. He was sure of his cause now, but he stationed himself behind his father to cut off retreat, which, however, the Professor had ceased to contemplate. He stood as if spell-bound, staring at the picture.
"It is my first work of any importance, papa," Hans began in his most caressing voice. "I could not possibly send it out into the world without showing it to you. You must not be vexed with me for the stratagem I had to employ to get you here; it was the only way to induce you to enter my studio."
"Hold your tongue, and let me look at the thing in peace and quiet," Wehlau growled, moving to get the best point of view.
Thus several minutes passed, and then the Professor began to mutter to himself in a way that sounded half angry, half approving. At last he turned to his son and asked in a low tone, "And you mean to tell me that you did this thing all yourself?"
"Certainly, papa."
"I don't believe it."
"You will surely not refuse me credit for my own work? How do you like it?"
The Professor began to mutter again, but this time it sounded more promising. "Hm! the thing is not so bad; there is force and life in it. Where did you get the idea?"
"Out of my head, papa."
Wehlau looked from the picture to his son, in whose head he had declared there was no room for anything save folly: the matter seemed to him inconceivable.
"Michael deserves the principal credit in the affair," the young artist said, laughing. "He has been an incomparable model. Of course I had no end of trouble in getting him into the right mood, but on one occasion I succeeded in irritating him so that he burst into a furious passion, and then I caught the expression and fixed it on the canvas. But you don't tell me what you think of my daubing."
The Professor's features twitched oddly; apparently he would fain have scolded and fumed afresh, but it was impossible, and at last he said, very gently, "But in future you will paint no more altar-pieces,--promise me that."
"No, papa; my next picture will portray natural science in the person of 'our distinguished investigator.' When will you sit to me?"
"Let me alone!"
"That is only half a promise, and I want a whole one. Shall we begin to-morrow?"
"Deuce take it! yes,--since there's no help for it."
"Victory!" shouted Hans, throwing his arms around his father, who no longer resisted; on the contrary, he clasped his son close, and looking into the young man's sunny blue eyes, he said, in a burst of tenderness, "You'll never make a scholar, my boy, of that I am now convinced, but, nevertheless, you may be good for something after all!"
At Saint Michael preparations were making for the festival of the saint; a very great occasion this year, since the new altar-picture was to be consecrated in its place with all due solemnity. The pilgrimage church was in festal array, and the Alpine hamlet, usually so quiet, was filled with the bustle of joyous excitement; preparations were making to receive the thousands of pilgrims who would arrive on the morrow from all parts of the mountains to pay their devotions in the sanctuary of the archangel: all was not yet ready, and it was the eve of the holiday.
On this afternoon the pastor had been as much pleased as surprised by the sudden and unexpected appearance of his former pupil, Captain Rodenberg. There was something pathetic in the old priest's delight. "Such a surprise!" he said, detaining the young man's hand in his clasp. "The last thing that I dreamed of was seeing you just at this time."
"I have only a single day at my disposal," replied Michael. "I must be in M---- the day after tomorrow again to join Colonel Fernau, whom I accompanied thither. I managed to get a three days' leave, and I made this little excursion to see your reverence."
Valentin smiled and shook his head. "Do you call it a little excursion? Why, it is almost a day's journey from here to M----; you have to drive alone through the mountains for five hours. But I am glad you think your old teacher worth the trouble; I shall at least have you on St. Michael's day; my faint hope that Hans might come has been disappointed."
"He wished to come, but he thought he owed it to his father to stay away. The Professor takes it to heart that the name of Hans Wehlau should be in such close connection with a festival of the church. You know----"
"Yes, I am perfectly aware of my brother's attitude with regard to the church," said Valentin, with a half-smothered sigh. "I made an abject apology to Hans when his 'Saint Michael' arrived, for I had never given our madcap credit for the earnestness and depth of character shown in this work of his."
"You all did him injustice; his own father especially underrated him," Michael warmly declared. "I alone, seeing the picture from the first sketch, was aware of what it promised. Hans has had a great triumph during its exhibition. It was instantly appreciated by the public, and elicited a burst of admiration; the critics praised it with rare unanimity, and everything has been done to spoil the artist with flattery. Fortunately, he is one of those who cannot be spoiled. Is the picture in its place yet?"
"It has been hung since the day before yesterday,--a costly and beautiful gift from the Countess to our church. She meant to be present at its consecration, and came from Berkheim to Castle Steinrück for the purpose."
"She will be here to-morrow, then?" Michael asked.
"No; unfortunately, she has been taken ill; she caught cold on the journey, and is seriously indisposed, so she sent me----"
Here they were interrupted by the sacristan, very hurried, very worried, with a number of questions to ask and communications to make with regard to the festival. His reverence had to arrange, decide, and oversee; there was a deal to be done.
"I think I ought not to monopolize you any longer," said Rodenberg. "The Herr Pastor appears to be in constant requisition. I will go up to the church for a while, to see how Saint Michael looks in his present surroundings. We shall have some quiet hours together this evening."
"I am afraid that can hardly be. You do not yet know,--I was just going to tell you, but----"
His reverence did not finish his sentence, for old Katrin came in at that moment with her arms filled with evergreens and garlands, and wanted to know where they were to be put, and the sacristan too stood waiting. Valentin was at his wits' end.
Michael left him and took the familiar road to the pilgrimage church. It was early in May, and the mountains were beginning to show the presence of spring, always so late to arrive among them.
The Eagle ridge was still girdled with ice, in dazzling crystal splendour, but the brooks from the glaciers, their chains broken by the sun, were dashing foaming down to the valleys, and the dark hemlock forest nestling against the rocky wall had already shaken the burden of snow from its boughs. From the alps and meadows surrounding Saint Michael the snow had also disappeared; they were laughing in fresh sunny green, while through them here and there trickled tiny rivulets from the heights; it was as if the whole mountain world had awaked to life. Still, however, above the heights and depths, above forest and meadow, the wild spring blasts were careering, sounding their note of promise and of victory.
Michael entered the church, quite empty at this hour of the afternoon, but having donned its modest festal garment. Here upon these lonely heights there were no fragrant blossoms of the spring,--column and portal were wreathed about with dark evergreen, and little nosegays of Alpine flowers were the sole decoration of the altar. There was, nevertheless, a breath of spring in the solemnity reigning in the quiet, spacious structure, now filled with the golden light of the declining sun. The church might wear a more festal aspect when thronged with a devout crowd, but it was much more beautiful in the profound consecrated repose in which it awaited its festival, still untouched, as it were, by all the aspirations, prayers, and laments which would arise from within its walls on the morrow. No inharmonious sound disturbed its quiet; even the roaring of the wind outside, dying away in long-drawn notes, sounded like the tones of a distant organ.
Saint Michael was enthroned above the high altar; not the dim picture of the saint which time had half destroyed, and which had been but the crude outcome of mediæval piety,--that had been respectfully transferred to the church vestibule,--but the work of the young artist who was making a name and fame for himself. Michael had been familiar with it from its first conception, he had seen it repeatedly; but it had been for him, as for the public, and even for the painter himself, only a picture, a scene of conflict, accidentally illustrating a legend of the church. He was surprised to the last degree by the impression produced by the picture in its present place. In the twilight of the chancel, between the tall Gothic windows with their glowing colours, it took on quite another appearance; it seemed freed from all earthly taint, the embodiment of the ancient sacred legend, repeated in all religions and among all races of mankind, of the victory of light over darkness.
Rodenberg slowly approached the high altar, and as he did so he became aware of a kneeling female figure, hitherto concealed by a column from his observation. It was no peasant: a gown of dark silk fell in folds upon the ground, and beneath the veil of black lace that had been thrown over the head there was a gleam as of red gold which Michael knew only too well. He paused as if stayed by a spell. Was this a freak of his fancy which was always bringing up before him the same image? Just then the lady, roused by the sound of his footstep, turned her head; an exclamation of surprise that was almost terror escaped her lips. Those were Hertha's eyes gazing at him.
It was surely a fate that had brought these two together for the second time in a lonely Alpine village, at an hour when each had believed the other miles away,--at least thus this unexpected meeting seemed to them. Both so lost their self-possession that neither observed the other's embarrassment; there was a pause, which Michael was the first to break. "I am sorry to have disturbed you, Countess Steinrück; I thought the church was empty, and did not perceive you until this moment."
Hertha slowly arose from her knees, conscious that her exclamation, her apparent dismay, called for some explanation. She had been lost in contemplation of the picture; she could not have told how long she had been gazing at Saint Michael, when suddenly he whom the saint suggested stood before her. There was a tremor in her voice as she rejoined, "I was, indeed, surprised. His reverence had not told me that you also were to be his guest."
"I arrived unexpectedly only half an hour ago, and had not heard of your being here, having been told only that you, with the Countess your mother, were at Steinrück."
"We both meant to come to Saint Michael," said Hertha, who by this time had regained her self-possession, "but my mother was taken ill,--not seriously, however,--yet I came with some anxiety. It was her express wish that at least one member of our family should be present at the festival and at the consecration of her gift, and so I yielded to her desire."
Michael uttered a few words of condolence and sympathy, mere phrases, which fell mechanically from his lips and were scarcely heeded. He did not look at Hertha as he spoke, and she avoided glancing at him. Instinctively their looks refused to encounter each other; they dwelt upon the picture, now fully illumined by the setting sun, which, streaming through the side windows into the nave of the church, cast a broad band of golden light upon the high altar.
The picture had none of the traditional setting of its predecessor: no circle of angelic heads looked down from above; no flames flickered up from the abyss; the two life-size figures were alone within the frame, each powerful and effective in its way. Above them arched the clear shining heavens; beneath them yawned a rocky gulf, the abode of eternal night.
Dashed from on high, on the very edge of the abyss, Satan was writhing upwards with the last desperate effort of a conquered foe not in the guise of the horned dragon-like monster of the legend, but in a human form of strange demoniac beauty, with dark wings like those of a bird of night. The face expressed agony, rage, and at the same time horror of the power that had hurled him to destruction; while in the upturned eyes there was the hopeless despair of a lost soul conscious of the light that had been radiant about it, but to be henceforth quenched in eternal night. It was Lucifer, once the Son of the Morning, and now showing in his ruin a gleam of his former splendour.
Above him, in the clear heavens, Saint Michael, in glittering mail, was sustained by two mighty wings, like those of an eagle, and like an eagle he was swooping down upon the foe. In his right hand flashed the sword of flame, and flame also flashed from his large blue eyes, while his hair, loosened by his impetuous flight, waved above his brow. His look, his bearing, bore witness to the battle that had been fought, and yet the entire figure of the archangel was as if bathed in the halo of glory that beamed about the strong, victorious champion of light.
"The picture produces a totally different effect in these surroundings," said Hertha, her gaze still fixed upon it. "Much more solemn, and much more powerful! The archangel has something terrible in his aspect; one can almost feel the fiery breath of annihilation proceeding from him. I am only afraid that the peasants will not comprehend this conception; they may perhaps regret the solemn indifference of the old picture."
"Ah, you do not know our mountaineers," rejoined Rodenberg. "This is just the picture that they will comprehend, as they could no other, for this is their Saint Michael, who sweeps in wind and storm above their mountains and valleys, and whose lightnings flash destruction. This is not the heavenly champion of the ecclesiastical legend, but the archangel of the popular faith in his original form. You thought me heretical once because I saw in the story the old Pagan worship of light and the ancient German god of thunder. You see now that my friend's conception coincided with my own: he has given something of the aspect of Wotan to his saint."
"And Professor Wehlau inoculated you both with these ideas," Hertha interposed, reproachfully. "He cannot endure the thought that his son has painted a genuinely sacred picture; something Pagan and old German must be discovered in it. As if the people would see in Saint Michael only the avenger! Tomorrow, on the anniversary of his appearance, he will be in their minds all beneficence, as he sweeps down from the Eagle ridge; his sword of flame only ploughs the soil, and the sparks of light that stream from it bestow the vigour and life of spring upon the earth. I have been hearing the beautiful legend again today."
"Well, this year he seems to have determined to descend in storm," said Michael. "The wind is rising on the heights, and in all probability the Eagle ridge will send down to us in the night one of those spring storms which are dreaded in all the country round. I know the signs."
As if in confirmation of his words, the wind outside grew louder and fiercer. It sounded no longer like the tone of an organ, but like the dull roar of distant breakers, now rising, now falling. The sun sank, attended by a few light clouds, in a sea of flame, the splendour of which filled the entire church. The faded old pictures on the walls, the statues of saints on pillar and column, the crosses and church banners, all looked instinct with a strange, ghostly life in the red light. The carved angels upon the altar steps seemed to stir their wings gently, and the broad band of gold which streamed across the picture turned to crimson and grew deeper as it mounted higher. Gradually the rocky abyss and Lucifer faded into shadow and darkness, while Saint Michael's mighty form, with its eagle-wings, was still surrounded by a halo of light.
There was a long silence. Hertha broke it, and there was an uncertain sound, a hesitation in her voice as she began: "Captain Rodenberg, I have a request to make of you."
He looked at her. "I am at your service."
"I should like to know the truth with regard to a certain affair,--the entire, unvarnished truth. May I learn it from you?"
"If it be in my power----"
"Most certainly, your consent is all that is needed. My uncle Steinrück has told me that the matter in which I entreated his interference is entirely arranged; of course I do not doubt his words, but nevertheless I fear----" She paused.
"You fear?"
"That the reconciliation is only momentary and apparent. You could not, perhaps, refuse your general the obedience he required of you, any more than Raoul could refuse it to his grandfather, and when you next meet the quarrel may be renewed."
"Not by me," said Michael. "Since Count Steinrück retracted, in the general's presence, his offensive words, I am entirely satisfied."
"Raoul? Did he really do that?" exclaimed Hertha, half incredulously, half indignantly.
"Under any other circumstances no reconciliation would have been possible. The Count, in fact, submitted to his grandfather's authority, when the general expressly required him to retract his words."
"Raoul submitted thus? Impossible!"
"You do not question the truth of what I say?"
"No, Captain Rodenberg, no; but I am more and more convinced that there is something concealed from me at the root of this matter. Very strange expressions were made use of during that scene at Colonel Reval's, and yet you are a stranger to our family, are you not?"
"I am," replied Michael, with cold emphasis.
"There was an allusion to associations which you, as well as Raoul, seemed to repudiate. What associations were those?"
"Do you not think that the general or Count Raoul could answer you better than I?"
Hertha shook her head. "They could or would tell me nothing. I have asked them. I hope to hear the truth at last from you."
"And I must beg you to excuse me. An explanation would only be painful, and to what it might lead you are aware."
"I heard only the beginning of the conversation," said the young Countess, divining that here a point was touched that were best avoided. "It was enough to cause me to fear the issue; but indeed I----"
"Do not trouble yourself to spare me," Rodenberg interposed, with intense bitterness. "I know you heard the entire conversation, and the word can scarcely have escaped you with which Count Steinrück--insulted my father's memory."
Hertha was silent for a moment, and then said, in a low voice, "Yes, I heard it, but I knew that it was a mistake. Raoul, too, sees the error now, and therefore retracted his words. Is this not so?"
Michael's lips quivered; he saw that the young Countess had not the slightest suspicion of his relations to her family, or of the tragedy that had been enacted in it, and it was not for him to explain it to her; but neither would he listen any longer to that voice so filled with tender sympathy; its tones were more potent to enthrall than ever were the songs of the sirens of old. He knew, indeed, that his next word would open a gulf between them that never could be bridged over. So much the better. It could not be helped, if he would retain his self-control, and in the hardest tone he could command he replied, "No!"
"No?" repeated Hertha, recoiling a step in dismay.
"It startles you, Countess Steinrück, does it not? But it must be said, nevertheless. I can defend my own honour against all attack, by whomsoever made. Against an assault upon my father I am powerless. I can strike the insulter down. I cannot give him the lie."
His voice was calm, although monotonous, but Hertha saw and felt how the man's entire nature was writhing beneath the wound which he thus ruthlessly tore open before her. She could best appreciate his pride,--pride that refused to bow even where he loved. She could estimate what this confession cost him, and, forgetting all else, yielding to the impulse of the moment, she exclaimed, "Good God! How terribly you must have suffered!"
Michael started and gazed at her inquiringly. It was the first time that he had heard her speak in this tone which came from her very soul, and vibrated with passionate sympathy, as if she felt his torture in every fibre of her frame. It was like the first glimmer of a bliss of which he had indeed sometimes dreamed, but from which he had turned with all the pride of a man resolved never to be the sport of a caprice. What he now saw and heard was no sport; it was an outburst of entire self-forgetfulness, of reckless frankness.
"Can you thus understand and feel for me?" he asked, and his heart beat high. "You, born and bred upon sunny heights of existence, with never a glimpse of the dark depths of human misery? Yes, I have suffered terribly, and I still suffer, when forced to connect the idea of disgrace with what should be sacred and dear to me--my father's memory."
Hertha stopped close to his side, and her voice fell on his ear soft and tender as a soothing touch upon a painful wound. "If you could not love your father, you had a mother,--her memory at least is stainless."
"Her memory! Yes. But she was a wretched woman, who had given up home and family to follow the man whom she loved, and by whom she believed herself beloved. She paid for her delusion with the misery of a lifetime, and it killed her."
"And her family knew this and permitted her thus to die?"
"Why not? It had been her free choice, She only expiated her fault. Can you not understand this, Countess Steinrück?"
The words were as bitter as ever. Hertha slowly raised her eyes to his,--there was nothing in them of the keen brilliancy that sometimes made their expression half demonic; their light now shone through tears.
"No, but I can understand how she could follow the man whom she loved, and could believe in him in spite of all the world, although her path lay through darkness and disgrace, and even led to ruin. I could have done this too."
"Hertha, what words are these from you to me?" Michael burst forth passionately, seizing her hand before she was aware and pressing it eagerly to his lips. This recalled the young Countess to herself, and she hastily tried to withdraw her hand.
"Captain Rodenberg, for the love of heaven! you forget----"
"What?" he asked, clasping her hand still more firmly.
"That I am Raoul's betrothed."
"Only his betrothed, not his wife! The tie may yet be severed. Give me the right to do so and I will break----"
"No, Michael, never! It is too late. I am bound."
"You are free if you will only say the word, but you will not say it."
"I cannot!"
"Is that your final decision?"
"It is."
Michael dropped her hand and retreated.
"Then I can only pray your forgiveness for my temerity."
Hertha saw how profound was his emotion. She was now expiating the early frivolity of her conduct towards him. He had no faith in her. The old evil spirit, the old suspicion was stirring within him again, whispering to him that her courage was that of words, not of deeds, and that she surely must prefer an alliance with a count's coronet to the love of the son of an adventurer. One word from her lips would convince him of his error, but before the young Countess there arose at this moment the stern dark face of the old general. She felt the iron clasp of his hand, she heard his words: 'Surely the betrothed of Count Steinrück knows what she owes to him and to herself!' The remembrance admonished her imperiously of the sacredness of her promise. A woman could not a few weeks before marriage sever an alliance into which she had entered voluntarily, because she had changed her mind. Hertha hung her head and was silent.
Meanwhile the sun had set, and with it had departed the golden glory in which the interior of the church had been bathed. Pictures and statues were cold and lifeless again, and gray twilight shadows were softly descending over all. The bright figure of the archangel alone could be discerned in the recess behind the altar. But the wind that roared about the walls outside had found an entrance somewhere: it wailed ill long-drawn notes through the vaulted arches, to die away whispering like spirit-tones.
Hertha shuddered involuntarily at the strange moaning sound, and then turned to go. Michael followed her, but at some slight distance, and neither spoke. They came out into the vestibule of the church, where they were met by the pastor looking much distressed. "I was in search of you, Countess Hertha," said he, out of breath with his hurried walk. "Here you are too, Michael. A messenger has arrived from Castle Steinrück----"
"From the castle?" Hertha interposed. "I trust my mother is no worse?"
"The Countess's illness seems to have become graver, and Fräulein von Eberstein wished you to know it; here is a letter for you."
Hertha opened the letter hurriedly and glanced through it. Valentin saw her grow pale.
"I must go; there is not a moment to be lost. I entreat your reverence to have the wagon made ready immediately."
"Do you wish to go now?" Valentin asked in dismay. "It is growing dark; the night will have fallen absolutely in half an hour, and there is a storm brewing. You cannot possibly take that long mountain drive in the night."
"I must! Gerlinda would not write as she does if my mother were not dangerously ill."
"But you yourself run a great risk in persisting in going. What do you think, Michael?"
"It will be a stormy night," said Michael, advancing. "Mustyou go, Countess Steinrück?"
For answer she handed to him and to the pastor the letter she had received. It consisted of a few hasty lines: "My godmother has suddenly grown worse; she is asking for you, and I am terribly anxious. The physician talks of a severe, perhaps dangerous attack. Come immediately! GERLINDA."
"You see I have no choice," the young Countess said in a trembling voice. "If I start immediately I can reach the castle before midnight. I must go, your reverence."
During the last few moments they had been walking towards the village. Hertha and the priest had some trouble in making their way against the wind. Valentin made one more attempt to persuade her to wait at least until daybreak before setting forth, but in vain.
At the parsonage they questioned the servant from the castle, who had ridden over on horseback, but he could give his young mistress no consoling tidings. The Frau Countess was certainly very ill; the Herr Doctor had looked very grave, and had bidden him make all the haste he could.
Michael had taken no part in the priest's remonstrances, but now he stepped to Hertha's side and asked, in a low voice, "May I go with you?"
"No!" was the reply, in a voice as low, but none the less decided. He retired with a frown.
Ten minutes later Hertha was seated in the little mountain wagon which her mother always used when she came to Saint Michael, and in which she herself had arrived at the parsonage. The coachman was skilful, and the servant who had accompanied her was mounted upon a stout mountain pony, as was also the messenger from the castle. Nevertheless the old priest stood with anxious looks beside the vehicle from which the young Countess held out her hand to him to bid him farewell. Then the beautiful face, now very pale, turned towards the door of the parsonage, where Michael was standing. Their glances met once more; there was in them a last farewell!
"God grant the storm do not increase during the night!" said Valentin, sighing, as the wagon drove off. "Those servants would all lose their heads in any actual peril. I hoped you would offer to accompany the Countess, Michael."
"I did so, but my offer was rejected in the most decided manner, and of course I could not persist."
The pastor shook his gray head disapprovingly. "How can you be sensitive and irritable at such a time? You could not but see how agitated the poor girl was; but in all matters where the Steinrücks are concerned your sense of justice is dulled. I have long seen that."
Michael made no reply to this reproach; his gaze followed the wagon, which soon disappeared in a bend of the road, and then he looked across to the Eagle ridge, which towered white and ghostly in the gathering darkness. It was still distinct, but the clouds were beginning to gather about its summits,--storm-clouds that loomed up slowly and threateningly.
When Valentin and his guest were once more seated in the priest's modest apartment, although they had not met since autumn, and each had much to hear and to tell, there was no ready flow of conversation. Michael especially was uncommonly absent and monosyllabic; he seemed scarcely to hear some of the priest's questions, and his answers to others were quite irrelevant. The pastor perceived with surprise that his thoughts were preoccupied.
The light had quite faded, and old Katrin had just set the lamp upon the table, when there was a knock at the door, and an elderly man in a hunting costume entered the room, baring his head as he advanced to the pastor.
"God bless your reverence, here I am in Saint Michael once more! Do you remember me? It must be ten years since I left the forest lodge."
"Wolfram, is it you?" exclaimed Valentin, much surprised. "Whence do you come?"
"From Tannberg. I had to go to the sessions there on account of a small property left me by an old cousin, and as to-morrow is Saint Michael's day, I thought I would take a look at my old home and see after your reverence. I got here half an hour ago and went to the inn, but I thought I'd look in on your reverence this evening."
The priest glanced with a degree of embarrassment at Michael. This unexpected arrival must be far from agreeable for the young officer, for if Wolfram did not recognize him at first, he certainly would do so shortly.
"You are right not to forget me or your old home," said he, with some hesitation. "I am not alone, as you see. I have a guest----"
"So I heard,--an officer," the forester interposed, standing erect and saluting in true military fashion. "I heard it at the inn,--a son of your reverence's brother in Berlin."
Michael had recognized his former foster-father at the first glance. The powerful, thick-set figure was unchanged, as were the hard features, and the hair and beard, now grizzled, were as neglected as formerly. The man was as rude and rough as ever. At sight of him Rodenberg was for a moment filled with bitterness at the thought that under such brutal guardianship his boyhood and the first years of his youth had been wasted. True, his sense of justice told him that the forester had acted according to his light, but, nevertheless, he could not bring himself to accost him with the old familiarity. There could not but be a certain condescension in his manner as he offered his hand to the new-comer. "The officer is not quite a stranger to you, forester," he said, quietly. "I think we have seen each other before."
Wolfram started at sound of the voice, and scanned the speaker from head to foot, then shook his head. "I have not the honour, so far as I know, Herr Captain. I seem to know the voice, and there is something in the face--what is it? I believe, your reverence, that the gentleman is like that queer fellow Michael who ran away."
"And of whom you seem to have but a poor opinion."
"You're right there!" said the forester, after his blunt fashion. "I had trouble and worry enough with the young rascal. He was as strong as a bear, but so stupid that no one could do anything with him; he did not understand anything, and at last he got me into disgrace with the Herr Count. I was glad to be rid of him when he ran away; he must have gone to ruin somewhere, for he was good for nothing."
Michael smiled slightly at this rather unflattering sketch of character, but the priest said, gravely,--
"You are greatly mistaken, Wolfram; you always were mistaken with regard to your foster-son. Look more closely at my guest,--he is Captain Michael Rodenberg."
Wolfram started and stared speechless at Michael as if he had seen a ghost. "The Herr Captain--he--Michael?" he stammered at last.
"Who did not quite go to ruin," said Michael. "You see he managed to get a captaincy."
The forester still stood as if thunderstruck, trying in vain to grasp the incredible fact. He looked up in helpless bewilderment at Michael, now a head taller than his former foster-father, and scarcely ventured to take the young man's offered band. He stammered a few words, half in salutation, half in excuse, but he evidently found it impossible to comprehend the situation.
Valentin benevolently came to his relief with a few questions as to his welfare during the last ten years, but it was some minutes before the forester could collect himself sufficiently to reply, and even then his answers were rather incoherent. There was not much to tell; his present situation on the young Countess's estates brought him a better salary than his former one, but he lived as before in the forest, with no associates save his underlings, rarely saw anything of the world, and seemed to lead the same half-savage life as formerly at the forest lodge. He saw the general frequently, for the Count was very conscientious in the discharge of his duties as guardian, and himself inspected his ward's estates, but he had seen his young mistress to-day for the first time for ten years; he had met her on his way to the village, as she was returning to the castle.
This was told in a broken, disconnected fashion, the speaker's eyes being all the while riveted persistently upon Michael. If the captain took any part in the conversation the forester was mute; his shyness seemed to increase rather than to diminish; his wonted self-assertion had vanished. Michael, moreover, was as taciturn and absent-minded as he had previously been in talking with the priest; even this unexpected meeting could not keep his thoughts from incessantly following the little mountain wagon, which had now probably accomplished a third of its journey, and he suddenly left the room to see if the moon, which had just risen, were shining brightly enough for the mountain drive.
Wolfram looked after him, and then said to the priest in a strangely--subdued tone, "Is it really true, your reverence? Is that really and truly Michael,--our Michael?"
Valentin could not forbear smiling, as he replied, "I should think you could see that for yourself."
"Yes, I do see it, but I can't believe it," the man declared. "Thatthe boy to whom I have given many a blow for his stupidity and obstinacy? The innkeeper said the captain was so wonderfully clever that they had put him on the general's staff, and in the last war he fought furiously, and made short work with the enemy. And now he's a captain, just like my Herr Count when I entered his service forty years ago, and some day he may be a general like his Excellency."
"It is quite possible. But did not the innkeeper mention his name when he told you all this?"
"No; he called him only 'the captain.' Oh, he has a great respect for him. Well, so far as I can see, there's no being very familiar with Herr Michael now. He is friendly enough, but there is a kind of way about him that makes you keep your distance. He calls me Herr Forester; I suppose I must call him Herr Captain."
"You certainly must conform yourself to altered circumstances," said the priest, gravely. "And one thing more, Wolfram. It is not necessary that you should tell the innkeeper and your other acquaintances that Captain Rodenberg is your former foster-son. He had very little intercourse with the villagers in old times, and is so much altered that no one recognized him when he returned here an officer. I know that Count Steinrück enjoined silence upon you with regard to your foster-son, and you were silent. You would oblige Michael and myself if you would pursue the same course now."
"I never was a tattler, as your reverence knows," rejoined Wolfram. "I shouldn't gain much by my former prophecies about Michael; the people would be sure to tease me with them, and I must go home the day after to-morrow; I don't want anybody here to get wind of the matter until after I have gone."
Michael's return put a stop to the conversation. Immediately afterwards the forester took his leave and returned to the little village inn, which stood at a considerable distance from the parsonage. Meanwhile the night had set in, and St. Michael soon lay buried in slumber.
The signs in the heavens, which had been so evident to a practised eye, had not prophesied falsely. Towards midnight the storm burst with a savage fury rarely equalled even in these mountains. The little Alpine hamlet was sufficiently familiar with the storms of autumn and of spring, and its inhabitants were wont to sleep calmly and quietly while the wind raged above the low stone-laden roofs and rattled at the doors and windows. But to-night the uproar was so terrible that it roused them from their repose. They crossed themselves and lay awake listening; it seemed as if Saint Michael were to be swept off the face of the earth.
There was a gleam of light in the parsonage. The priest had risen, and was standing at the window, entirely dressed, when he heard Michael's step upon the stairs.
"I saw a light in your room, and so came down," the captain said as he entered. "The storm has roused you from your bed. I thought it would do so."
"And you have not been in bed at all," rejoined Valentin. "At least I have heard your step continually above my head. You must have paced your room for hours."
"I could not sleep, and I forgot that I should disturb you."
"Not at all; my sleep was broken with anxiety about the Countess Hertha and her mountain drive. Thank God, the storm did not come until near midnight! She must have reached the castle by eleven."
"Are you perfectly sure of that?" asked Michael, eagerly.
"Yes; the drive down could not, even with extreme caution, take more than three hours, and for that length of time the sky was tolerably clear; moreover, the moon is at the full. What I feared was that the storm would overtake the Countess on the way. Once in the valley she was out of danger."
"If she arrived there. But how can we be sure of it?" murmured Michael. He could not but admit that the priest was right; in all probability Hertha had long since been safe in the castle; but the restless anxiety which had robbed him of sleep would not leave him; it possessed him with a vague dread, a foreboding of evil.
He, too, had gone to the window, and both men stood looking out silently into the storm and night, illuminated by a gray light from the moon, which behind its veil of clouds shone brightly enough to reveal objects at some distance. Suddenly the dim figure of a man appeared, seeming to come directly from the village, and making his way with sturdy steps in the teeth of the wind towards the parsonage. Michael's keen eye first detected him; he pointed him out to the priest, who shook his head, surprised. "In such weather! Some one must be desperately ill and requiring the sacrament, but I know of no one in the village who is ailing. The man is certainly coming here. I must go and let him in."
He went to open the door himself, and immediately afterwards Wolfram's voice was heard. "It is I, your reverence. I come like a ghost in the night, but it can't be helped. If you had been asleep I should have had to knock you up."
"What is the matter? What brings you here?" Valentin asked, anxiously, as he conducted his visitor into the room.
"No good, your reverence. First let me get my breath. That cursed wind,--it nearly knocked me down! I come about the young Countess----"
"Countess Steinrück? Where is she?" Michael hastily interrupted him.
"Heaven only knows! She has not returned to the parsonage?"
"Good God, no!" exclaimed Valentin. "The Countess set out for the castle."
"Yes, but she had to turn back. That confounded horse shied at a mountain brook! I should like to wring the brute's neck! And the coachman, instead of holding on to the reins, was tossed off the box, and there he lies with a hole an inch deep in his head. The servant got him back with difficulty to the inn, and the young Countess was lost on the way back. Not a soul knows where she is,--and in such a night, when all the fiends are abroad!"
He paused to take breath. Michael had grown very pale. Confused and vague as was the man's tale, he saw that his forebodings were justified.
"Was the Countess uninjured. Where did the accident happen? At what time? Answer! answer!"
He assailed the forester so peremptorily with his questions that Valentin, in spite of his anxiety, gazed at him in amazement. Wolfram did his best to tell his story more connectedly, and was partly successful, but his tidings were not more consoling. "At first all went well. The road was perfectly clear in the moonlight, and they drove on tolerably fast. Then the brute, the horse, suddenly shied at a brook that tumbled swollen down the mountain, rushed into the stones by the wayside, fell, and pulled over the carriage with him."
"And the Countess was not injured?" The question was as eager as the foregoing ones.
"No, she was on her feet in an instant, but the coachman lay bleeding on the ground, and the wagon had lost a wheel. Of course the men lost their heads,--that kind of folk never have any sense outside the walls of their castle. The young Countess seems to have been the only one to have her wits about her, and she brought the others to order. She could not go on with the broken wagon; there was nothing for it but to return. The coachman, who could not walk, was put into the wagon among the cushions, and one of the servants with the shying horse stayed with him, while the Countess and the other servant mounted the other horses and set out to go back to Saint Michael, promising to send help. Nothing has been seen or heard of her since."
"At what time did this happen?" Michael interrupted him.
"At about nine o'clock."
"Then she ought to have been here by ten, and it is now one hour past midnight!"
He uttered the words in a tone of such anguish that the priest again cast at him a look half inquiry, half dismay. But Michael had eyes and ears only for the forester and his tidings, and he urged him impatiently, "Go on! go on!"
"There's not much more to say," Wolfram declared. "The two men waited for help for two hours, and when it did not come, and the weather grew more threatening, they had the sense to set out by themselves. The coachman had somewhat recovered, and was put upon the horse, which the other man led by the bridle, and so at last they reached the inn, but could go no farther, for the storm was too furious; they were perfectly sure that the Countess was at the parsonage. But she never got back to the village; she would have had to pass the inn, and no one had seen her. The servant is crying like an old woman about his young mistress, but he could not be prevailed upon to go to the parsonage through the storm. So I came,--and there your reverence has the whole story. What is to be done?"
"There has been an accident!" exclaimed the priest, his anxiety increasing with every moment. "I feared it when this wretched mountain journey was undertaken. They have fallen down some roadside precipice."
"They are more likely to have lost their way," said Michael, his voice faltering in spite of his effort to steady it. "Did the two servants who returned find no trace of the others?"
"No, not the least."
"Then there can have been no plunge down a precipice; two persons, and two horses, could not disappear from a tolerably safe road without a trace left behind. They have lost their way."
"But that is impossible,--there is no other road," said the priest.
"Yes, one, your reverence, near Almenbach, where the path winds upward to the mountain chapel. The roads are very similar, moonlight is illusive, and if the Countess did not soon find out her mistake, she must have got among the clefts of the Eagle ridge!"
"God protect us!" exclaimed the priest. "That would be almost as bad as a plunge down a precipice!"
Michael bit his lip; he knew that this was no exaggeration; from his boyhood he had been familiar with the clefts and abysses of the Eagle ridge.
"It is the only imaginable possibility," he rejoined. "At all events, there is not a moment to be wasted; hours have been lost already. We must set out immediately."
"Now? In such a night?" asked Wolfram, staring at the captain as if he thought him insane, while Valentin exclaimed,--
"What are you thinking of, Michael? You do not mean----?"
"To go in search of the Countess. Of course. Do you suppose I could stay quietly here while she is exposed to all the horrors of this night?"
"You ought to wait, and not attempt impossibilities. You know our mountains, and that nothing is to be done while the storm is raging thus. As soon as it subsides, as soon as the morning dawns, we will do all that men can do. To go out now would be worse than folly,--it would be madness!"
"Madness or not, it must be attempted!" Michael burst forth. "Do you imagine that I set the least value on my life weighed against hers? If I had to follow her to the summit of the Eagle ridge, where death seemed certain, I would either deliver her from peril or perish with her!"
Valentin clasped his hands in dismay. This burst of despair and anguish betrayed to him the well-guarded secret of which he had, indeed, within the last few minutes had some suspicion, and he exclaimed under his breath, "Can this be? Good God!"
Michael paid him no heed; he had turned to Wolfram, and said, hastily, "I need companions; we must search in different directions; will you go with me?"
"I? Now, when all the fiends of hell are loose in the mountains? The Wild Huntsman was never so furious in all the years I spent at the forest lodge."
"Infernal superstition!" muttered Rodenberg, stamping his foot. "Then go for the innkeeper; he is a good mountaineer and a brave man."
"That may be, but he'll not stir out in weather like this. He took his oath of that when some one spoke of it awhile ago, and he said a ton of gold would not tempt him, for he had a wife and children to take care of."
"Then I will go alone. Send help after me as soon as the morning dawns. Let the innkeeper and a party take the road towards the mountain chapel, which I shall follow, and pursue it to the Eagle ridge, if necessary. You, Wolfram, with some others, search the forest around the lodge, your former domain. Your reverence will please to have the road gone over again as far as to the spot where the accident occurred. Summon the whole village to help. I have no more time to lose."
In spite of his terrible agitation, he spoke in the energetic tone of command which he was wont to use to his subordinates, and as he hastily left the room the forester looked after him with a bewildered air, evidently greatly impressed.
"He has learned how to command. That's plain!" he said, in an undertone. "He behaves as if the entire village belonged to his regiment and had to obey orders. Queer! My Herr Count was just so. Michael's look and tone are just like his; he might have learned them from him, or have been his son. There's something queer in it, your reverence; it looks like witchcraft."
The priest made no reply,--he was as if stunned. Hertha's danger, Michael's reckless resolve to follow her, the discovery he had just made with regard to the pair, everything coming at once upon the venerable man, unused as he was to any passionate emotion, overpowered him: he felt dizzy.
In a few moments Michael returned, completely equipped for his midnight expedition in a rough plaid, with his mountain staff; he held out his hand to his old teacher: "Farewell, your reverence, and if we should not see each other again, God protect us!"
Valentin clasped his hand and held it fast; fear lest he should lose his favourite outweighed the thought of Hertha's peril. "Michael, be reasonable. Hark! how the wind is roaring! You'll not be able to get a hundred steps from the house. Wait at least for half an hour!"
Rodenberg withdrew his hand impatiently. "No, every minute may be fraught with life and death. Farewell."
He walked to the door, where Wolfram was standing motionless. His hard features worked strangely as he asked, with hesitation, "You really mean to go, Herr Captain, and all alone?"
"Yes, since no one has the courage to go with me," said Michael, bluntly.
"Oho! we are not cowards either!" exclaimed the forester, offended. "A Christian man like the innkeeper, who has a wife and children, ought not, indeed, to venture, but I have nothing of the kind, and since there's no help for it--why, I don't care--I'll go too!"
Valentin was greatly relieved by these words,--glad that Michael was not, at least, to go alone; but Rodenberg merely said, "Come, then! Two are always better than one."
"That depends," said Wolfram. "Perhaps the Wild Huntsman thinks so too, and will carry off both of us. Good-bye, your reverence; it can do no harm for you to pray hard for us while we are gone. You are a holy man, and if you will speak a good word for us to Saint Michael, he may, perhaps, interfere and put the hellish crew outside to rout; 'tis high time."
Michael waved his hand to the priest from the threshold of the door; Wolfram followed him, and in a few minuses both were lost to sight outside.
The Eagle ridge had, in fact, sent forth one of the spring storms, so justly dreaded in all the country round. Those who shared the forester's superstition might well believe that a rabble of fiends from the pit were abroad dealing destruction about them. There was a wild uproar in the air, a crashing and howling in the forest, while the moon, veiled by the rack of clouds, shed over earth and sky a weird ghostly light more dreary than any darkness. Wolfram crossed himself from time to time when the wind shrieked its loudest, but he tramped bravely onward through the storm,--it needed a man of his physical vigour and one familiar with the mountains to make headway on such a night and in such a place.
Both men reached the road to the mountain chapel without discovering a trace of those whom they were seeking; here they separated.
Michael, in spite of his companion's remonstrances, pressed on to the Eagle ridge, which began here, while Wolfram turned aside towards his old domain about the forest lodge. It was agreed that he who first discovered the missing ones should conduct them to the mountain chapel and there await daybreak. In any case the two men were to meet there at dawn, in order, if their search had been fruitless, to wait for the villagers from Saint Michael, and to continue the quest by daylight. These were Captain Rodenberg's orders.
"I wonder if he will ever get back again!" muttered Wolfram, pausing for a short breathing-space in the midst of the forest. "It is sheer madness to go among the cliffs of the Eagle ridge; but he'll climb it if he does not find the Countess below. I'll wager my head on that! No use to gainsay him; on the contrary, he orders me round as if he were my lord and master. I wonder why I put up with it, and why on earth I came with him. His reverence is right; it is madness to climb the mountains on such an infernal night, when not a cry could be heard, no signal be seen. We don't even know which way to go, but Michael doesn't care for that. And I thought him cowardly! To be sure he always, as a boy, wanted to run into the midst of the Wild Huntsman's crew to see them closer,--it was only men that he ran away from. Now he seems to have stopped running away from them, but he orders them about like a lord. And you have to obey,--there's no help for it,--just like my old master the Count."
He heaved a sigh, and was about to march on. Just then there was a slight lull in the blast, and the forester gave a long, loud shout, as he had been doing at intervals. This time, however, he started and listened, for he seemed to hear something like the sound of a human voice. Again Wolfram shouted with all the force of his lungs, and from no great distance came the wailing tones, "Here! Help!"
"At last!" exclaimed the forester, turning in the direction whence came the voice. "It is not the Countess, I can hear that; but where one is the other must be."
Giving repeated calls, he hurried on, the answers coming more and more distinctly, until in about ten minutes he came upon Hertha's attendant, who no sooner saw him than he threw his arms about him, clinging to him like a drowning man.
"Take care, you'll upset me!" growled Wolfram. "Did you not hear me shout before? For two hours we have been hallooing in every direction. Where is the Countess?"
"I don't know; I lost her an hour ago."
The forester roughly shook the man off the arm to which he was still clinging: "What? Lost? Thunder and lightning, man! what do you mean? Just when I think I have found the Countess, you turn up without her. Why did you not stay with her, as was your bounden duty?"
"It was not my fault," wailed the man. "The fog--the storm--and the horses have gone too!"
"Hold your tongue about the horses!" Wolfram interposed, roughly. "Men's lives are at stake, and you tell me nothing that I can understand. How came you here without the Countess?"
It was some time before the exhausted man was able to answer the forester's questions. He was an old family servant, faithful and trustworthy, and had therefore been chosen by the Countess to attend her daughter on this expedition, but he had completely lost his presence of mind in the face of the present peril, and had been of no service whatever to his mistress.
As Michael had surmised, they had taken the wrong road, and had discovered their mistake only upon reaching the mountain chapel. Then they had turned their horses' heads; but the moon, which until then had shone brightly, began to be obscured, and their ignorance of the country was disastrous. In vain did they turn in every direction; they could not find the road again and were completely lost. The horses, bewildered and nettled by the aimless wandering to and fro, finally refused to stir a step. There was nothing for it but to alight.
Then the tempest began; clouds gathered from all quarters. The Countess sent her attendant back a short distance for the horses, which had been left at the foot of a declivity, in a last hope that by trusting to their instinct the way might be found; but the servant had no sooner left her than the gathering mist closed about him, obscuring everything. He could not find the horses, nor make his way back to his mistress. His cry of distress was drowned by the roar of the tempest, and he had probably wandered away from her in his attempt to find her. How he had gone astray he could not tell.
"That is the worst of all!" exclaimed the forester. "The Countess is now entirely alone, and very likely has wandered towards the Eagle ridge, as Captain Rodenberg supposed. I should like to know why he chooses to run blindly into all kinds of danger after her? What we have to do, however, is to get to the mountain chapel as soon as possible. Come along! On the way we can go on shouting; it may do some good."
The storm raged with undiminished fury. Black clouds swept overhead and enveloped the mountains, breaking from time to time into a host of misty phantom shapes. And there was a roaring, a shrieking, and a howling, as of a myriad voices of the night echoing from the air above and from chasm and abyss below.
At the foot of a huge fir, the summit of which soared bare and dead into the air, a female figure was crouching, worn out by fruitless wandering, chilled by the mist and despairing of succour. The delicate child of luxury, whom hitherto the winds of heaven had not been allowed to visit too roughly, had nevertheless bravely confronted a real peril, and had done everything to encourage her attendant while they were together. The trembling old servant could neither advise nor aid his mistress; but he had at least given her a sense of human companionship, and now he had disappeared. No searching for him, no call, was of any avail; she was alone amid the horrors of this night,--entirely alone.
More than an hour had passed thus,--a time which must always be dream-like in her memory. She wandered on and on. Gloomy forests; dark rocky crests reared aloft like phantoms; mountain streams, whose foaming waters gleamed dimly in the fitful glimpses of the moon,--all passed her by, shadowy and indistinct. Like a somnambulist, she wandered on the brink of clefts and abysses, not heeding the perils of a path which she never would have dreamed of traversing in the broad light of day. But at last it came to an end in its upward course, and she could go no farther; she sank down exhausted.
There was a moment's lull in the storm; the clouds broke, and the moon, sailing into the clear space, illumined the scene clearly. Hertha saw that she had reached a narrow rocky eminence, and that an abyss yawned close beside her. Around her was a broken sea of cliffs and rocks, below her was the black night of the forest, and above her soared the dizzy heights of the Eagle ridge, about whose rocky crests the clouds were flying, while the topmost peaks gleamed ghost-like in their robes of snow. The distant muffled roar of the glacier streams fell upon her ear, but only for a few moments. Then the roaring of the wind began afresh, drowning all other sounds; the moon vanished, and the dim, weird twilight fell on all.
The old fir-tree creaks and groans and sways; it seems as if the blast would tear it loose from its rocky bed. Hertha clasps her arms about the trunk, neither moaning nor weeping, but a tremor runs through her entire frame, and there is an icy pressure upon her temples. Her eyes are fixed upon the white gleaming peaks still glistening distinctly, and the old legend recurs to her. From those summits Saint Michael sweeps down at dawn the next day. Cannot the mighty patron saint of her race, the victorious leader of the heavenly host, to whom thousands will pray on the morrow, come to the rescue of a poor child of mortality whose warm young life shudders at the thought of the icy embrace of death? But his dominion begins with the dawn,--it is with the first ray of morning that his sword of flame flashes forth beneficently over the earth; and now night and destruction reign.
A fervent prayer bursts from the poor girl's very soul. Clearly and distinctly the picture rises upon her mental vision: the archangel with the eagle's wings and eyes of flame enthroned above the high altar, surrounded as by a halo by the light of the setting sun, and by her side stands one, strangely like the picture,--one who had once declared to her, 'If my bliss were as lofty and unattainable as the Eagle ridge, I would scale the heights though each step threatened destruction.'
Ah! she knew it was no empty boast. Michael would follow her through peril of all kinds: he would seek her and find her if he knew of her danger; but he now supposed her long since safe at the castle. And yet it seemed to her as if the intense passionate yearning that filled her heart, mind, and soul must draw him to her side, as if he could and would hear the desperate cry that burst from her lips, half a prayer to St. Michael and half a call to him whom she loved: "Michael,--help!"
Surely there was an answering call, distant and faint, but still his voice, and she hears it through the tempest as he has heard hers: "Hertha!" And again it comes louder, and with an exultant sound: "Hertha!"
She rises to her feet and answers. Nearer and nearer sounds the succouring call, until just below her she hears: "What! Up there? Courage, dearest, I am coming."
Then ensue minutes that seem endless. Michael is ascending slowly, laboriously, but at last she sees him; he plants his mountain-staff firmly and swings himself up beside her, clasps her in his arms, and she clings to him as if never to leave him more.
But this blissful moment of forgetfulness is brief: danger still threatens; not an instant must be lost.
"We must go," urged Michael. "The fir is tottering, and may fall at any moment; these clefts are never safe. Come, dearest."
He clasped his arm about her, and she leaned upon him in unquestioning confidence, as he half led, half carried her down the rocky slope. The moon had emerged again, and lighted them on their way, revealing at the same time all the terrors of the path by which Hertha had ascended half unconsciously, and the perils of which were doubled in descending. But not in vain had Michael lived for ten years in these mountains; the man had not forgotten what had been familiar to the boy for whom no rocky summit had been too lofty, no cleft too deep. Thus they made the descent, the abyss close beside them, the wild uproar of the stormy night about them, their hearts filled with an exultant joy that no tempest, no abyss, could affect. At last they reached a place of safety. Michael had kept his word: he had snatched his bliss from the Eagle ridge.
Morning was approaching, and the tempest was subsiding; it no longer raged with savage fury, and the heavens were gradually clearing; the clouds slowly dispersed, and about the mountain-tops the first gray glimmer of dawn appeared.
Michael made a halt as they issued from the rocky gorge. The mountain chapel was almost a mile away, and his exhausted companion was obliged to rest. All peril was past; there was no difficulty about the rest of the way if it were traversed by daylight. He found a shelter for Hertha beneath a protecting rock, where she sat shielded from the wind, while he stood beside her. The young Countess's attire had suffered sadly: her dark wrap was torn and muddy, she had lost her hat, her heavy braids hung loose about her shoulders, as, pale and weary, she leaned her head back against the wall of rock. And yet Michael thought he never had seen her look half so lovely as at this moment,--his love, whom he had battled for and won through storm and tempest.
They had scarcely spoken on the way hither, each step was taken at the risk of life, and now they were still silent, gazing upward at the Eagle ridge, where the gray dawn was beginning to yield to a crimson tint that deepened every moment. At last Michael bent over her and said, gently, "Hertha!"
She looked up at him, and suddenly held out to him both her hands. "Michael, how did you ever find me in those abysses? You could have had no clue to guide you."
He smiled and carried her hands to his lips. "No; but I divined where my Hertha was,--where she must be. And you, too, dearest, knew that I should come to you: you called me before you heard my voice. Now I no longer dread that harsh refusal which fell from your lips yesterday. I have no fear of the promise given by you to one whom you do not love. I have won you from the Eagle ridge, and I shall surely triumph over Raoul Steinrück."
"I can never be his wife!" exclaimed Hertha. "I know now that it is impossible! But do not quarrel with him again, Michael, I implore you. If it is possible----"
"But it is not possible!" Michael gravely interrupted her. "Do not deceive yourself, Hertha; there must come a struggle, probably a break with your entire family, who never will forgive you for dissolving a tie so desired by all of them,--for sacrificing a Count Steinrück to a bourgeois officer. And there is something beside with which they will taunt both you and me,--I told you of it yesterday in the church,--the blot upon my life."
"Your father's memory," she said, softly.
"Yes; they will never cease to remind you that you are giving yourself to the son of an adventurer, whose name is not without stain. I thought to terrify you with this yesterday, but, God bless you! you thought only of my suffering. Nevertheless, shall you be able to endure the shadow upon your life when that name shall be your own?"
His eyes sought hers with a look in them of the old mistrust of the former Countess Steinrück with her haughty self-consciousness. But the delusive gleam had vanished from the eyes which the boy had pronounced 'beautiful evil eyes,'--they were shining with the clear sunshine of love and happiness.
"Must I repeat to you, then, what I said to you yesterday when you spoke of your mother?--'I, too, can follow him whom I love even into misery and disgrace,--ay, even to ruin.'"
He clasped her in his arms, and she rested there as she had done before on the Eagle ridge, behind which there was a dark crimson glow,--a flaming herald of the morning as it mounted aloft. The snowy summits began to blush with rosy tints, and the clouds still lying on the horizon were all 'in crimson liveries dight.'
"The day is breaking," said Michael, pressing his lips again and again upon the 'red fairy gold' of the head resting on his breast. "As soon as you are able we will set out upon our homeward way. I will take you to your mother to-day."
"My mother!" exclaimed Hertha, regretfully. "Oh, how could I so far forget her! God grant I have been nearer death than she! My mother would give ear to my entreaties, I know, but she submits blindly in everything to my uncle Michael, and there will be a severe struggle with him."
"Leave him to me," Michael interposed. "Immediately upon my return I will inform the general that you wish to annul your contract with Raoul, that----"
"No, no!" she remonstrated. "I must bear the first brunt of his anger. You do not know my guardian."
"I know him better than you think; this will not be our first encounter. If any one can measure himself against the general it is I,--his near of kin."
Hertha looked at him in bewilderment. "What do you mean? I do not understand."