Part 8

"I will do nothing by halves, and your rescue is but half accomplished if no aid comes from without. But I must wait till Marco has reached the village; he will search every hut, examine every stone in it, and meanwhile I shall gain time to go."

"Never!" cried Gerald. "I will not permit it. You might meet Obrevic, and I, too, know him. If he should guess--nay, even suspect, your design, he would kill you."

"Certainly he would!" said Danira, coldly. "And he would do right."

"Danira!"

"If Marco punished treason with death he would be in the right, and I should not flinch from the blow. I am calling the foe to the aid of a foe; that is treason; I know it."

"Then why do you save me at such a price?" asked the young officer, fixing his eyes intently upon her.

"Because I must."

The words did not sound submissive but harsh. They contained a sullen rebellion against the power which had fettered not only the girl's will but her whole nature, and which enraged her even while she yielded to it. She had brought the foreigner, the foe, to the sacred spring, although she knew that such a rescue would be considered treachery and desecration; she was ready to sacrifice everything for him, yet at the same moment turned almost with hatred from him and his love.

The _bora_ could not penetrate the depths of the ravine, but it raged all the more fiercely on the upper heights, roaring around the peaks as if it would hurl them downward. Old legends relate that, on such tempestuous nights, the spirits of all the murdered men whose blood has ever reddened the earth are abroad, and it really seemed as though spectral armies were fighting in the air and sweeping madly onward. Sometimes it sounded as if thousands of voices, jeering, threatening, hissing, blended in one confused medley, till at last all united with the raving and howling into a fierce melody, a song of triumph, which celebrated only destruction and ruin.

What else could have been its theme in this land where the people were as rigid and pitiless as the nature that surrounded them? Here conflict was the sole deliverance. A fierce defiance of all control, even that of law and morals, a bloody strife, and humiliating defeat. So it had been from the beginning, so it was now, and if the legendary ghosts were really sweeping by on the wings of the blast, they were still fighting, even in death.

Yet amid this world of battle, the Vila spring cast its spell of peace. Whence it came, who had uttered it, no one knew. The origin was lost in the dim shadows of the past, but the pledge was kept with the inviolable fidelity with which all uncultured races cling to their traditions. Perhaps it was an instinct of the people that had formerly erected this barrier against their own arbitrary will and fierceness, and guarded at least one spot of peace--be that as it may, the place was guarded, and the rude sons of the mountains bowed reverently to the enchanted precinct, whose spell no hostile deed had ever violated.

The moon was now high in the heavens, and her light poured full into the ravine.

The bluish, spectral radiance streamed upon the dark cliffs and wove a silvery veil upon the clear waters of the spring, which flowed on untroubled by all the raging of the tempest. Above were storm and strife, and here below, under the shelter of the towering rocks, naught save a faint murmuring and rippling that seemed to whisper a warning to give up conflict and make peace beside the spring of peace.

"You must!" said Gerald, repeating Danira's last words. "And I too must. I too have struggled and striven against a power that fettered my will, but I no longer hate that power as you do. Why should we keep this useless barrier of hostility between us; we both know that it will not stand; we have tried it long enough. I heard the cry that escaped your lips when I so unexpectedly crossed the threshold of your house. It was my own name, and the tone was very different from that hard, stern, 'I must.'"

Danira made no reply; she had turned away, yet could not escape his voice, his eyes. The low, half choked utterance forced a way to her heart; in vain she pressed both hands upon it. That voice found admittance, and she heard it amid all the raging of the storm.

"From the day I entered your mountain home one image stood before my soul, one thought filled it--to see you again, Danira! I knew we must meet some day. Why did you leave me that message? You would not take my contempt with you, though you defied the opinion of every one else. The words haunted me day and night! I could not forget them, they decided my destiny."

"It was a message of farewell," the young girl murmured in a half stifled tone. "I never expected to see you again, and I gave it to your promised wife."

"Edith is no longer betrothed to me," said the young officer, in a hollow tone.

Danira started in sudden, terror-stricken surprise.

"No longer betrothed to you? For heaven's sake, what has happened? You have severed the tie."

"No, Edith did it, and for the first time I realize how entirely she was in the right. Those laughing, untroubled, childish eyes gazed deep into my heart; they guessed what at that time I myself did not, or would not know. True, her father left me the option of returning if I could conquer the 'dream.' I could not, and now--by all that is sacred to me--I no longer wish to do so. What is the reality, the happiness of a whole life, compared with the dream of this moment, for which, perhaps, I must sacrifice existence? But I no longer complain of the stratagem that lured me here; it gave me this meeting, a meeting not too dearly purchased by the mortal peril that now surrounds me, nay, by death itself."

It was really Gerald von Steinach whose lips uttered these words, Gerald von Steinach, the cool, circumspect man with the icy eyes, who could not love.

They now flowed in a fiery stream from his lips and kindled a responsive flame in Danira's soul. Her strength could no longer hold out against this language of passion, and when Gerald approached her a second time, she did not shrink from him, though the hand he clasped trembled in his.

"Perhaps I may bring you death!" she said softly, but with deep sorrow. "It is my destiny to cause misfortune everywhere. Had I left Cattaro even a few weeks earlier, we should never have seen each other and you would have been happy by Edith's side. I know she merely entrenched herself behind caprices and obstinacy; her heart belongs to the man who was destined to be her husband. It is the first true, deep feeling of her life, the awakening from the dream of childhood. She is now experiencing her first bitter grief--through me. And yet she is the only creature I have ever loved."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but in vain. He would not release it, and only bent toward her, so close that his breath fanned her cheek.

"The only creature? Danira, shall not even this hour bring us truth? Who knows how short may be the span of life allotted to me? I do not believe Obrevic's fierceness and thirst for vengeance will be stayed by this spot, and am prepared to fall a victim to his fury. But I must once more hear my name from your lips as you uttered it just now. You must not refuse that request. If, even now, in the presence of death, they sternly withhold the confession of love, be it so, I will not ask it--but you must call me what my mother calls me--you must say this once: 'Gerald.'"

His voice trembled with passionate entreaty. It seemed vain, for Danira remained silent and motionless a few seconds longer. At last she slowly turned her face to his, and gazing deep into his eyes, said:

"Gerald!"

It was only one word, yet it contained all--the confession so ardently desired, the most absolute devotion, the cry of happiness, and with an exclamation of rapturous joy Gerald clasped the woman he loved to his breast.

The storm raged above them, and mortal peril waved dark wings over their heads; but amid the tempest and the shadow of death a happiness was unfolded which swallowed up every memory of the past, every thought of the future. Gerald and Danira no longer heeded life or death, and had a bloody end confronted them at that moment they would have faced it with radiant joy in their hearts.

"I thank you!" said Gerald, fervently, but without releasing the girl from his embrace. "Now, come what may, I am prepared."

The words recalled Danira to the reality of their situation; she started.

"You are right, we must meet what is coming; I must go."

"Go! At the moment we have found each other? And am I to let you face a peril I cannot share?"

Danira gently but firmly released herself from his arms.

"You are in danger, Gerald, not I, for I know every path of my 'mountain home,' and shall avoid Marco, who has now had time to reach the village. Have no fear, your safety is at stake, I will be cautious. Yet, before I go, promise me not to leave the Vila spring; let no stratagem, no threat lure you away. Here alone can you and your companion find safety and deliverance, one step beyond that rock gateway and you will be lost."

The young officer gazed anxiously and irresolutely at the speaker. True, he told himself that she would be safe; even if she met his pursuers no one would suspect whence she came or where she was going, and a pretext was easily found. If she remained with him she must share his fate and perhaps be the first victim of her tribe's revenge, yet it was unspeakably difficult for him to part from the happiness he had scarcely won.

"I will not leave the spring," he answered. "Do you think I want to die now? I never so loved life as at this moment when my Danira is its prize, and I am ready to fight for it--I shall be fighting for my happiness and future."

His glance again sought hers, which no longer shunned it, but the large dark eyes rested on his features with a strange expression--a look at once gentle, yet gloomy and fraught with pain; it had not a ray of the happiness so brightly evident in his words.

"The price[1] of your life!" she repeated. "Yes, Gerald, I will be that with my whole heart, and now--farewell!"

"Farewell! God grant that you may reach the fort safely; once there my comrades will know how to protect my preserver from the vengeance of her people."

He spoke unsuspiciously and tenderly, but he must have unwittingly stirred those dark depths in the girl's nature, which were mysterious even to him. Danira started as though an insult had been hurled in her face; the old fierceness seemed about to break forth again, but it was only a moment ere the emotion was suppressed.

"I need their protection as little as I fear the vengeance directed against myself alone! Farewell, Gerald; once more--farewell!"

The young officer again clasped her in his arms. He did not hear the pain of parting in the words, only the deep, devoted love, still so new to him from Danira. But she scarcely allowed him a moment for his leave-taking, but tore herself away, as if she feared to prolong it.

He saw her bend over the spring, while her lips moved as though she were commending her lover to its protection. Then she hastily climbed the cliff, and vanished through the dark rock gateway.

At the top of the height Danira paused. Only one moment's rest after this mute, torturing conflict! She alone knew what this parting meant. Gerald did not suspect that it was an eternal farewell, or he never would have permitted her to quit his side.

In spite of all, he did not know Danira Hersovac. She had, it is true, become a stranger to her people, out of harmony with all their customs and opinions, while her own thoughts and feelings were in the camp of the foe from whom she had once so defiantly fled, but the mighty, viewless tie of blood still asserted its power, and called what she was in the act of doing by the terrible name, treason.

She was going to summon the foreign troops to Gerald's aid, and if Marco held out--and hold out he would--blood would be shed for the sake of one who should not, must not die, though his rescue should cost the highest price.

From the moment Danira knew that this rescue was solely in her hands she no longer had a choice. Save him she must! It was a necessity to which she helplessly bowed, but to live on with the memory of what had happened and be happy by her lover's side--the thought did not enter the girl's mind.

The dead chief's daughter might commit the treason, but she could also expiate it. When Gerald was once rescued and in safety, she would go back to her brother and Marco, the head of the tribe, and confess what she had done. The traitress would meet death, she knew--so much the better. Then the perpetual discord between her birth and her education would be forever ended.

She cast one more glance into the ravine, where the water of the Vila spring was shimmering in the moonlight. Mysteriously born of the rocky soil, it appeared but once, gazed but once at the light to vanish again in subterranean chasms, yet its short course was a blessing to every one who approached it. Here, too, it had bestowed a brief, momentary happiness, which had only glittered once and must now end in separation and death; yet it outweighed a whole existence.

The invisible hosts were still contending in the air, their jeering, threatening voices still blended in the fierce chant of destruction and ruin. Danira was familiar with the legends of her home, and understood the menace of the tempest. She raised her head haughtily as if in answer.

"Vain! I will not let myself be stopped! If I commit the treason, I have pronounced my own doom, and Marco will pitilessly execute it. God himself would need to descend from heaven to secure my pardon. You shall be saved, Gerald; I will be what I promised--the price of your life!"

She hurried onward through the storm-swept, moonlit waste of rocks--to the rescue.

VII.

The two men were now alone in the ravine, but the young officer's gaze still rested on the spot where Danira had vanished. He did not notice that George had climbed down from his bowlder and approached him, until the worthy fellow made his presence known by a heavy sigh which attracted his attention, and he asked:

"What ails you?"

George made the regulation military salute.

"Herr Lieutenant, I wanted to respectfully report--I couldn't hear anything up there, but I saw the whole affair."

"Indeed? Well, that alters nothing, though I did not particularly desire your presence. To be sure, I had entirely forgotten you."

"I believe so!" said George, sighing a second time, and even more piteously. "You had forgotten everything. If all Krivoscia had come up and made an end of us I don't think you would have even noticed it. But I at least kept watch and prayed constantly for the salvation of your soul, but it did no good."

"That was very kind of you!" replied Gerald, who was completely possessed by the arrogance of happiness which raised him far above all anxiety or thought of peril. "I certainly had no time for that, since, as you saw, I was pledging my troth."

"Herr Gerald!" In his despair George forgot respect and used the old familiar name. "Herr Gerald--by all the saints--this is awful!"

"To betroth one's self in the presence of mortal danger? It is certainly unusual, but the time and place cannot always be chosen."

This had not been George's meaning. He thought the fact terrible in itself, and with a face better suited to funereal condolence than congratulation he said:

"I've long known it! I said day before yesterday to Father Leonhard: 'Take heed, your reverence, some misfortune will happen! And if it does all Tyrol will be turned topsy-turvy and Castle Steinach to boot----'"

"Let them! then."

"'And the blow will kill his mother,'" George continued, pursuing the current of his mournful prophecies.

"My mother!" said Gerald, who had suddenly grown grave. "Yes, I shall have a hard struggle with her. No matter! The battle must be fought. Not a word more, George!" he cried, interrupting the young soldier, who was about to speak. "You know I submit to many liberties of speech from you where the matter concerns only myself, but there my indulgence ends. From this moment you must respect in Danira Hersovac my future wife: remember it and govern yourself accordingly."

"Perhaps we shall both be killed first!" said George, in a tone which seemed to imply that it would afford him special consolation. "I don't believe this bewitched spring is a protection against murder, and if the enemy doesn't finish us, the confounded rock hanging in the air yonder will. It moved when the _bora_ just blew so madly. I saw it distinctly. It actually nodded to me, as if it wanted to say: 'Just wait, I'll drop down on your heads!'"

He pointed upward and Gerald's eyes followed the direction indicated. The white moonbeams flooded the dark stone without being able to lend it any light. Gloomy and threatening, like a gigantic shadow, the rock overhung the entrance of the ravine, and the shimmering moon-rays produced such an illusion that it seemed to the young officer as though the summit had actually sunk lower and the opening had grown smaller, but he shook his head in denial.

"Nonsense! Surely you heard that the rock had leaned so for centuries. It has endured far different storms from this one; even the fiercest _bora_ can do nothing against this unyielding stone. At any rate this is our best position for defense. Our backs are protected, and we can watch the approach of the enemy--hark! What was that? Did you hear nothing?"

The two men listened intently George too had started, for he also had heard a strange noise, but the wind drowned it entirely. A long time passed, then the _bora_ lulled a few minutes, and now they distinctly heard, at no very great distance, the sound of footsteps and voices, which, judging by the echo, belonged to a large body of men.

"There they are!" said Gerald, who, in the presence of danger, had completely regained his coolness; his voice scarcely betrayed a trace of excitement. "Come here by my side, George! We'll keep together so long as we can hold out. They shall at least see that they have to deal with men who will not let themselves be slaughtered without resistance."

George accepted the invitation and stationed himself by his lieutenant's side, but could not help in this critical moment uttering a last hurried prayer to his patron saint.

"Saint George! I've never bothered you much with petitions, and always helped myself wherever it was possible, but there's no chance here. You know I haven't been a bad fellow, except for my love of brawling and fighting, but you liked it too, Saint George! You always struck about with your sword and hewed down the dragon, so that it could only writhe. So help us fight, or rather fight with us, for we can never conquer alone. And if you will not do that, at least grant us a blessed end, and take the poor little pagan, Jovica, under your protection, so that she can be baptized and meet us some day in heaven--Amen!"

Jovica! That was the last thought of the young Tyrolese, even later than his soul's salvation; he wanted at least to have the satisfaction of seeing her again in heaven.

"Are you ready?" asked Gerald, who had not lost sight of the entrance a moment, though he heard the murmuring of his companion. George drew himself up resolutely.

"Ready, Herr Lieutenant! The praying is finished, now it's time for the fighting, and I don't think I shall disgrace my patron saint."

The men stood side by side, grasping their weapons firmly in their hands ready for an attack, which, it is true, merely afforded them the hope of an honorable death, for if it once came to fighting they were lost, but minute after minute passed, and the assault was not made.

The entrance to the ravine was open and unguarded, and the pursuers had now reached it.

Their voices, raised in loud, angry tones, were distinctly heard in the pauses of the storm, but no one appeared, no one crossed the threshold of the rock gateway; an invisible barrier kept them back.

An anxious quarter of an hour, which seemed endless, passed in this perplexing quiet. Sometimes, single figures, standing in dark, sharp relief against the starry sky, appeared high up on the edge of the ravine, evidently trying to obtain a view of the bottom. Their weapons glittered in the moonlight, but not a shot was fired. At last they vanished again, while the confused roar of the tempest grew still louder and fiercer than before.

"Strange! They really do not dare to approach the spring!" said Gerald in a low tone. "Danira is right, the tradition will be respected, even against the enemy--I would not have believed it."

"This is getting tiresome, Herr Lieutenant," replied George. "Here we've been standing for more than half an hour, perfectly resigned to our fate and ready to be murdered--of course, after we've killed half a dozen of the enemy--and now nothing happens! This is evidently witchcraft. These people fear neither death nor devil, and yet are afraid of water."

"Then we will remain under the protection of this water. You heard the caution; not a step beyond that rock! Whatever they try, whatever happens, we will not quit the spring until help comes--if it comes at all."

The last words sounded gloomy and despairing, the young officer was thinking of all the possibilities that might detain Danira on her way to the fort, but George said confidently:

"Our comrades won't leave us in the lurch, nor Saint George either. He will have some consideration and help an honest Tyrolese against this band of murderers. It would have been a pity about us both, Herr Lieutenant. I'm in no hurry to die yet. I think there will be plenty of time for that, fifty years hence, and it would be too bad to have the Moosbach Farm go to strangers."

With these words George leaned comfortably against the cliff, and began to imagine the fifty years and picture Jovica's delight when he entered the fort alive and well. He finally came to the conclusion that an earthly meeting of this sort would be preferable to a union in heaven, especially as, owing to his foundling's paganism, the latter was somewhat doubtful.

Hour after hour elapsed; the night began to wane, the stars shone less brightly, then one by one vanished, and the cold, gray dawn, rested on the earth. The _bora_, too, had almost ceased. It only blew occasionally in violent gusts that raged with redoubled power, but the pauses between constantly lengthened, the storm was evidently nearly over.

Outside the ravine containing the Vila spring was the band of pursuers who, with dogged, tireless endurance, had waited there for hours. Danira knew her race and especially Marco Obrevic. She was well aware that he would not leave the track of his foe, though he would not dare to approach the spring. In fact he had not yet ventured to do so, but now his unruly nature seemed to triumph over the barrier that restrained it.

A dispute had evidently broken out among the men; their voices rose in loud altercation, Marco's loudest of all. He was standing in the midst of his companions, towering in height above them all, but his bearing was menacing and defiant, as if he were in the act of carrying out his will by force.

Stephan Hersovac was vainly trying to restore peace.

"Let him go; he only threatens; he will not do it," he called to the others.

"You will not violate the spring, Marco; the two men in the ravine cannot escape us, but we must wait till--"