THE MOUTH OF HELL, page 2
“Be quiet, you do yourself an injustice, Samuel.”
Superstitious child! Do you imagine, because we are astride among scenery suggestive of ‘Der Freyschiitz ‘that I am the devil, Satan, Beelzebub or Mephistopheles, and that I am going to change myself into a black cat, a dog-fiend? Oh! oh! what is this?”
This exclamation was extorted from Samuel by a quick movement of his horse, who, utterly terrified, had just backed on to that of Julius.
Evidently some danger lurked in their road. The young man, leaning in the direction whence the danger threatened, waited for a flash. He had not long to wait. The heavens were rent; a sheet of flame swept the horizon from one end to the other and lighted up the landscape.
The path was interrupted by a yawning abyss, the lightning had flashed against the sides of a precipice, then died away, without allowing the gaze of the two young men to fathom its depth.
“There’s a fine gap!” said Samuel, compelling his horse to approach nearer to the precipice.
“But do be careful!” cried Julius.
“Bless me! I must look at it quite close,” said Samuel.
And, dismounting from his horse, he threw the bridle over Julius’s arm, approached the abyss and gazed curiously into it.
But, as his gaze could not pierce the darkness, he pushed over a large stone which plunged into the depths.
He listened, but heard nothing.
“Good,” said he, “my boulder must have fallen on soft earth, for it has not made the least noise.’- He had just finished speaking when a great splash resounded from the sombre depths.
“Ah! the abyss is deep!” said Samuel. “Who the devil will tell me what this gap-is called?”
“The Mouth of Hell!” answered a clear, grave voice from the other side of the gulf.
“Who answers me from over there?” exclaimed Samuel with astonishment, if not fear. “I see no one.”
Another flash lit up the sky, and, on the opposite side of the pit, the two young men beheld a strange apparition.
CHAPTER II.
THE APPARITION.
A YOUNG girl, standing erect, her hair unbound, her arms and legs bare, a black hood inflated by the wind waving round her head, a short skirt of reddish hue, dyed an even deeper red by the lightning, beautiful with a strange wild beauty, having at her side a horned beast which she held by a leash, — such was the vision which appeared to the two young men on the farther side of the Mouth of Hell.
The lightning died away, and the vision with it. — ” Did you see, Samuel?” asked Julius, far from reassured.
“Egad! yes, — saw and heard too.”
“Do you know, if it were allowable for intelligent men to believe in witches, we might easily believe we have just seen one?”
“But,” said Samuel, “it is one, I sincerely hope! You saw that nothing was wanting, not even the goat. However, the witch is pretty. Ay! little one!” he cried.
And he listened as he had done when he rolled the boulder into the abyss. But, again, nothing answered him.
“By the Mouth of Hell!” said Samuel, “I will not be foiled.”
Snatching his horse’s bridle, he leapt into the saddle, and, with one bound, and heedless of the warnings of Julius, he galloped round to the other side of the precipice; in a moment he had reached the spot where the vision had appeared; but it was in vain that he sought, he saw nothing, — neither girl, nor animal, nor witch, nor goat.
Samuel was not the man to rest satisfied with this; he examined the precipice, searched the bushes and brambles, struck a light, went hither and thither. But, at last, Julius imploring him to give up this useless quest, Samuel rejoined his companion, angry and vexed; he was one of those tenacious beings, who make it a practice to go to the end of every trail, to the bottom of everything, and in whom doubt arouses, not a train of thought, but irritation.
They resumed their way.
The flashes of lightning guided them to some extent, affording them at the same time a magnificent sight. At intervals the forest was dyed purple from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the ravine, while the stream at their feet assumed the deadly whiteness of steel.
Julius had said nothing for the last quarter of an hour, and Samuel continued to mock at the last bursts of the dying thunder, when suddenly Julius stopped his horse, and cried:
“Ah! this will do for us.”
And he pointed out to Samuel a ruined tower, which rose on their right.
“That ruin?” said Samuel.
“Yes, we are sure to find some corner there to shelter us. We can stay there until the storm is over, or at any rate, until the rain ceases.”
“Yes, and our clothes will dry on our backs, and we shall catch a fine cold on the chest by standing still in our damp garments! Never mind! let us see what the place is like.”
In a few steps they reached the foot of the ruin; but it was not easy to gain admittance to it. The castle, abandoned by man, had been invaded by bushes. The entrance was obstructed by these plants and shrubs, that flourished amid the crumbling walls. Samuel urged on his horse through everything, adding, to the prick of the spur, the sting of the thorns.
Julius’ horse followed, and the two friends found themselves in the interior of the castle, if indeed such words as castle and interior may be applied to crumbling ruins, open on all sides to the winds of heaven.
“Oh! oh! you have brought us to this place for shelter?” said Samuel, looking up; “it seems to me, that, to attain that end, a roof or a ceiling would be indispensable; unfortunately, roof and ceilings are conspicuous by their absence.”
In point of fact, time had made of this castle, which perhaps in old days had been powerful and imposing, a miserable skeleton; of the four walls, but three now remained, and even these were rent by their windows being enlarged out of all proportion; the fourth had crumbled away even to the last stone.
The horses stumbled at every step; roots protruded and in places the pavement was cracked and broken into holes, as if the vegetation, imprisoned for three hundred years, had succeeded, by the long toil of centuries, in piercing, with its gnarled and stubborn fingers, the stones of its prison.
The three surviving walls swayed and bent under the blast of the tempest. Night birds of every kind circled round and round in this open hall, greeting each breath of the storm, each roar of thunder, with horrid cries, from among which rose above all others the scream of the osprey, whose note resembles the cry of a murdered man.
Samuel surveyed everything with that habit of minute scrutiny peculiar to himself.
“Good!” said he to Julius, “if you like to stay here until morning, I am equally willing to do so. We are remarkably well here, almost as well as in the open air, and have, besides, this advantage, that the wind rushes much more furiously into this eyrie. We are, to be perfectly exact, in the funnel of the storm. And then these crows and bats, deuce take them! are not a pleasure to be scorned. These quarters suit me splendidly. Eh! why! see that owl, the philosopher’s bird, she is fixing her burning eyes upon us; is she not the most delightful thing in the world? Exclusive of all this, we will be able to boast of having galloped round a dining-room.”
So saying, Samuel put spurs to his horse and urged him towards the spot where the wall was missing; but scarce had he gone ten paces before the horse reared so violently, pivoting on itself, that its eyes looked full into Samuel’s face.
At the same moment a voice cried:
“Stop! the Neckar!”
Samuel looked down.
He hung suspended two hundred feet above the river. In turning upon itself, the horse’s two fore-legs had described a semi-circle in empty space.
The mountain, at this spot, was perpendicular; the castle had been built overlooking the abyss, which formed part of the strength of its position.
Wild creepers ran from end to end like a garland, clinging to the ragged surface of the granite, so that the old stronghold, undermined by the ages. and almost plunging down the precipice, into which it was ready to fall, seemed only held together by a thin festoon of ivy.
One step more must have meant certain death to rider and horse.
And thus the horse, with bristling mane, flaming nostrils, foaming mouth, trembled in every muscle, shook in every limb.
But as for Samuel, calm, or rather sceptical as usual, the danger he had so narrowly escaped aroused in him but one reflection.
“Upon my word! the same voice,” said he.
Samuel recognised the voice as being that of the young girl who had warned him from the Mouth of Hell.
“Oh! this time,” Samuel exclaimed, “were you what I accused you of being, a witch of the third power, I shall find you.”
And he urged his horse in the direction from which the voice had proceeded.
But, this time again, in vain he searched, in vain the lightning gleamed, he did not find, he did not see anyone.
“Come, come, Samuel!” said Julius, who now was not sorry to leave these ruins, full of croakings, of pitfalls, and of precipices; “come, let us get on our way! we have already wasted too much time!”
Samuel followed, looking searchingly round him with an. annoyance which the darkness enabled him to conceal.
They found the road again, and continued on their way; Julius, serious and silent; Samuel, laughing and swearing like one of Schiller’s bandits.
A discovery restored some hope to Julius. On leaving the ruins, he perceived a pathway, which, by a gentle but broken incline, sloped down to the river. Probably this path, which was practicable and evidently frequented, led to some village, or at least to some house.
But at the end of half an hour they had come across nothing but the river, skirting its steep bank and ascending its noisy course.
No shelter of any sort was to be seen.
During all this time the rain fell with the same violence. The clothes of the two men were wet through; the horses were exhausted with fatigue. Julius was worn out; Samuel himself was beginning to lose his buoyant spirits.
“By Satan!” cried he, “the affair grows tame, for more than ten minutes we have had neither thunder nor lightning. This is nothing but a downpour. In truth, heaven plays an unkind jest upon us. I was quite willing to put up with a great excitement but not with a wearisome annoyance. The storm mocks me in its turn; I defy it to strike me with its thunderbolt, and it chills me to the bone.”
Julius did not reply.
“By my troth!” said Samuel, “I feel strongly inclined to try what an invocation would do.”
And in a loud and solemn voice he added:
“In the name of the Mouth of Hell from which we beheld you issue! in the name of the goat, your best friend! in the name of the ravens, the bats, and the owls who have abounded in our path since our happy encounter with you! charming witch, who hast already addressed me twice, I adjure thee! In the name of the gulf, of the goat, of the ravens, of the bats, of the owls, appear! appear! appear! and tell us if we are near any human habitation.”
“If you had strayed from your path,” said the clear voice of the young girl in the darkness, “I would have warned you. You are in the right road; follow it ten minutes more, and you will find on its right, behind a group of lindens, hospitable shelter. Till we meet again!”
Samuel looked up in the direction from which the voice proceeded, and perceived a kind of shadow which appeared to hover at about ten feet above his head, running up the side of the mountain.
He felt instinctively that she was going to disappear.
“Stop! “Samuel cried, “I have yet something to ask you.”
“What is it?” said she, as she stood still on the top of the rock, of which the pointed extremity was such, that it seemed impossible for a foot, even the foot of a witch, to stand upon it.
He looked about for some way by which he could get up at her; but the pathway along which the two horsemen rode was hollowed out of the rock. It was a path for men; the one the witch followed was only a goat-track.
Seeing that he could not reach the beautiful girl by means of his horse, he determined to reach her at least by his voice.
Turning to his friend “Well! my dear Julius,” he said, “I was enumerating to you, an hour ago, the harmonies of this night; the tempest; my twenty years, the wine of the old stream, and, by thunder! I was forgetting love! love, which comprises all the others, love, the real youth, love, the real storm, love, the real intoxication.”
Then, urging forward his horse, with one bound he approached nearer the girl.
“I love you!” said he, “charming witch. “Love me too, and, if you will, we will have a fine wedding. Yes, at once. When queens get married, the fountains are made to play and guns are fired. At our wedding, God makes the rain to fall and the thunder to roar. I see very well that it is a real goat you have there, and I take you to be a witch, but I will have you — I give you my soul, give me your beauty.”
“You are impious towards God and ungrateful towards me,” said the young girl as she disappeared.
Once more Samuel tried to follow her, but decidedly the mountain side was unscaleable.
“Come, come, let us go on,” said Julius.
“And where do you want me to go?” said Samuel out of temper.
“To the house to which she directed us of course.”
“Nonsense! you believe it?” retorted Samuel. “And if this house does exist, who is to tell you that it is not a cutthroat place to which it is the mission of our fair guide to lure ‘belated travellers ‘?”
“You heard what she told you, Samuel? Ungrateful towards her, blasphemous towards God.”
“Come on, then, since you wish it,” said the young man. “I have no faith, but if it can afford you any pleasure, I can pretend to believe.”
“See, unbeliever!” rejoined Julius ten minutes later.
And he pointed out to his friend the cluster of linden trees which the young girl had spoken of. A bright light shining through the trees indicated the existence of a house. Both rode under the limes and arrived at the gateway.
Julius raised his hand to the bell.
“You ring at the cut-throats’ door?” said Samuel.
Julius made no answer, but rang the bell.
“I wager,” said Samuel, laying his hand on the young man’s arm, “I wager you it will be the girl with the goat who will open us the door.”
The inner door opened and a human form, carrying a muffled lantern, advanced to the gate which Julius had rung.
“Whoever you are,” said Julius to the person who approached, “consider the weather and our present plight; for more than four hours we have been walking beside precipices and torrents; give us shelter for the night.”
“Enter,” said a voice familiar to the young men.
It was that of the young girl who had addressed them on the road to the ruined castle, and at the Mouth of Hell.
“You see,” said Samuel to Julius, who could not repress a shudder.
“What house is this?” asked Julius.
“Well! are you not coming in, gentlemen?” asked the girl.
“Egad! yes, of course we are!” said Samuel. “I would enter into hell itself, provided the portress were a pretty girl.”
CHAPTER III.
A MAY MORNING.
THE next morning, when Julius awoke and found himself in a comfortable bed, it was some time before he could realize where he was.
He opened his eyes. A glad ray of sunshine, glinting through the openings of a shutter, danced cheerfully about, alive with sprightly atoms, on a floor, spotlessly white and clean. A joyous concert of birds added melody to the brightness.
Julius sprang out of bed. A dressing gown and slippers had been laid out for him; he slipped them on and went to the window.
Scarcely had he opened the window and pushed back the shutters, ere the room was, as it were, flooded with song, sunshine and perfume. The room overlooked a beautiful garden, full of birds and of flowers. Beyond the garden, the valley of the Neckar, traversed and quickened by the river. In the distance, on the horizon, the mountains.
And over all, the radiant sky of a glorious May morning; and in the midst of all, that exuberant life with which the air is alive in the springtime of the year.
The storm had swept every cloud from the sky. The vault of heaven was everywhere of that calm deep blue which suggests an idea of what the smile of God must be.
Julius experienced an indefinable sensation of restfulness and well being. The garden, freshened and fertilised by the night’s rain, was overflowing with sap. The sparrows, the warblers, and the goldfinches. celebrating their gladness at having escaped the storm, converted each branch into an orchestra. The raindrops played upon by the sun turned each blade of grass into an emerald.
A vine crept lightly in at the casement, and tried to find its way into the room to pay Julius a friendly visit.
But suddenly vine, birds, dew on the grass, songs in the leaves, mountains in the distance, splendours in the sky, Julius saw nothing, heard nothing, of them all.
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