The Headsman, James Fenimore Cooper [top 100 books to read TXT] 📗

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"'Twas the dog I noted, and it was on account of his appearance that I spoke;" returned the baron. "The animal had the air of an old acquaintance, Gaetano, for to me it seemed to resemble our tried friend Nettuno; and he at whose heels it kept so close wore much the air of our acquaintance of the Leman, the bold and ready Maso."

"Who has gone unrequited for his eminent services!" answered the Genoese, thoughtfully "The extraordinary refusal of that man to receive our money is quite as wonderful as any other part of his unusual and inexplicable conduct. I would he had been less obstinate or less proud, for the unrequited obligation rests like a load upon my spirits."

"Thou art wrong. I employed our young friend Sigismund secretly on this duty, while we were receiving the greetings of Roger de Blonay and the good bailiff, but thy countryman treated the escape lightly, as the mariner is apt to consider past danger, and he would listen to no offer of protection or gold. I was, therefore more displeased than surprised by what thou hast well enough termed obstinacy."

"Tell your employers, he said," added Sigismund, "that they may thank the saints, Our Lady, or brother Luther, as best suits their habits, but that they had better forget that such a man as Maso lives. His acquaintance can bring them neither honor nor advantage. Tell this especially to the Signor Grimaldi, when you are on your journey to Italy, and we have parted for ever, as on my suggestion. This was said to me, in the interview I held with the I rave fellow after his liberation from prison."

"The answer was remarkable for a man of his condition, and the especial message to myself of singular exception. I observed that his eye was often on me, with peculiar meaning, during the passage of the lake, and to this hour I have not been able to explain the motive!"

"Is the Signore of Genoa?"--asked the guide: "or is he, by chance, in any way connected with her authorities?"

"Of that republic and city, and certainly of some little interest with the authorities;" answered the Italian, a slight smile curling his lip, as he glanced a look at his friend.

"It is not necessary to look farther for Maso's acquaintance with your features," returned Pierre, laughing; "for of all who live in Italy, there is not a man who has more frequent occasions to know the authorities; but we linger, in this gossip. Urge the beasts upwards, Etienne--presto!--presto!"

The muleteers answered this appeal by one of their long cries, which has a resemblance to the rattling that is the well-known signal of the venomous serpent of this country when he would admonish the traveller to move quickly, and which certainly produces the same startling effect on the nerves of the mule as the signal of the snake is very apt to excite in man. This interruption caused the dialogue to be dropped, all riding onward, musing in their several fashions on what had just passed. In a few minutes the party turned the crag in question, and, quitting the valley, or sterile basin, in which they had been journeying for the last half hour, they entered by a narrow gorge into a scene that resembled a crude collection of the materials of which the foundations of the world had been originally formed. There was no longer any vegetation at all, or, if here and there a blade of grass had put forth under the shelter of some stone, it was so meagre, and of so rare occurrence, as to be unnoticed in that sublime scene of chaotic confusion. Ferruginous, streaked, naked, and cheerless rocks arose around them, and even that snowy beacon, the glowing summit of Vélan, which had so long lain bright and cheering on their path, was now hid entirely from view. Pierre Dumont soon after pointed out a place on the visible summit of the mountain, where a gorge between the neigh boring peaks admitted a view of the heavens beyond. This he informed those he guided was the Col, through whose opening the pile of the Alps was to be finally surmounted. The light that still tranquilly reigned in this part of the heavens was in sublime contrast to the gathering gloom of the passes below, and all hailed this first glimpse of the end of their day's toil as a harbinger of rest, and we might add of security; for, although none but the Signor Grimaldi had detected the secret uneasiness of Pierre, it was not possible to be, at that late hour, amid so wild and dreary a display of desolation, and, as it were, cut off from communion with their kind, without experiencing an humbling sense of the dependence of man upon the grand and ceaseless Providence of God.

The mules were again urged to increase their pace, and images of the refreshment and repose that were expected from the convent's hospitality, became general and grateful among the travellers. The day was fast disappearing from the glens and ravines through which they rode, and all discourse ceased in the desire to get on. The exceeding purity of the atmosphere, which, at that great elevation, resembled a medium of thought rather than of matter, rendered objects defined, just, and near; and none but the mountaineers and Sigismund, who were used to the deception, (for in effect truth obtains this character with those who have been accustomed to the false) and who understood the grandeur of the scale on which nature has displayed her power among the Alps, knew how to calculate the distance which still separated them from their goal. More than a league of painful and stony ascent was to be surmounted, and yet Adelheid and Christine had both permitted slight exclamations of pleasure to escape them, when Pierre pointed to the speck of blue sky between the hoary pinnacles above, and first gave them to understand that it denoted the position of the convent. Here and there, too, small patches of the last year's snow were discovered, lying under the shadows of overhanging rocks, and which were likely to resist the powers of the sun till winter came again; another certain sign that they had reached a height greatly exceeding that of the usual habitations of men. The keenness of the air was another proof of their situation, for all the travellers had heard that the Augustines dwelt among eternal frosts, a report which is nearly literally true.

At no time during the day had the industry of the party been as great as it now became. In this respect, the ordinary traveller is apt to resemble him who journeys on the great highway of life, and who finds himself obliged, by a tardy and ill-requited diligence in age, to repair those omissions and negligences of youth which would have rendered the end of his toil easy and profitable. Improved as their speed had become, it continued to increase rather than to diminish, for Pierre Dumont kept his eye riveted on the heavens, and each moment of time seemed to bring new incentives to exertion. The wearied beasts manifested less zeal than the guide, and they who rode them were beginning to murmur at the unreasonableness of the rate at which they were compelled to proceed on the narrow, uneven, stony path, where footing for the animals was not always obtained with the necessary quickness, when a gloom deeper that cast by the shadows of the rocks fell upon their track, and the air filled with snow, as suddenly as if all its particles had been formed and condensed by the application of some prompt chemical process.

The change was so unexpected, and yet so complete, that the whole party checked their mules, and sat looking up at the millions of flakes that were descending on their heads, with more wonder and admiration than fear. A shout from Pierre first aroused them from this trance, and recalled them to a sense of the real state of things. He was standing on a knoll, already separated from the party by some fifty yards, white with snow, and gesticulating violently for the travellers to come on.

"For the sake of the Blessed Maria! quicken the beasts," he cried; for Pierre, like most who dwell in Valais, was a Catholic, and one accustomed to bethink him most of his heavenly mediator when most oppressed with present dangers; "quicken their speed, if ye value your lives! This is no moment to gaze at the mountains, which are well enough in their way, and no doubt both the finest and largest known," (no Swiss ever seriously vituperates or loses his profound veneration for his beloved nature,) "but which had better be the humblest plain on earth for our occasions than what they truly are. Quicken the mules then, for the love of the Blessed Virgin!"

"Thou betrayest unnecessary, and, for one that had needs be cool, indiscreet alarm, at the appearance of a little snow, friend Pierre," observed the Signer Grimaldi, as the mules drew near the guide, and speaking with a little of the irony of a soldier who had steeled his nerves by familiarity with danger. "Even we Italians, though less used to the frosts than you of the mountains, are not so much disturbed by the change, as thou, a trained guide of St. Bernard!"

"Reproach me as you will, Signore," said Pierre turning and pursuing his way with increased diligence, though he did not entirely succeed in concealing his resentment at an accusation which he knew to be unmerited, "but quicken your pace; until you are better acquainted with the country in which you journey, your words pass for empty breath in my ears. This is no trifle of a cloak doubled about the person, or of balls rolled into piles by the sport of children; but an affair of life or death. You are a half league in the air, Signor Genoese, in the region of storms, where the winds work their will, at times, as if infernal devils wore rioting to cool themselves, and where the stoutest limbs and the firmest hearts are brought but too often to see and confess their feebleness!"

The old man had uncovered his blanched locks in respect to the Italian, as he uttered this energetic remonstrance, and when he ended, he walked on with professional pride, as if disdaining to protect a brow that had already weathered so many tempests among the mountains.

"Cover thyself, good Pierre, I pray thee:" urged the Genoese in a tone of repentance. "I have shown the intemperance of a boy, and intemperance of a quality that little becomes my years. Thou art the best judge of the circumstances in which we are placed, and thou alone shalt lead us."

Pierre accepted the apology with a manly but respectful reverence, continuing always to ascend with unremitted industry.

Ten gloomy and anxious minutes succeeded. During this time, the falling snows came faster and in finer flakes, while, occasionally, there were fearful intimations that the winds were about to rise. At the elevation in which the travellers now found themselves, phenomena, that would ordinarily be of little account, become the arbiters of fate. The escape of the caloric from the human system, at the height of six or seven thousand feet above the sea, and in the latitude of forty-six, is, under the most favorable circumstances, frequently of itself the source of inconvenience; but here were grave additional reasons to heighten the danger. The absence of the sun's rays alone left a sense of chilling cold, and a few hours of night were certain to bring frost, even at midsummer. Thus it is that storms of trifling import in themselves gain power over