enormous vulture, which seemed to have suddenly grown out of the air, was suspended in the clouds. So motionless was it that it might have been likened to a sculptured work, wrought by an angel's hand, and fixed in heaven as a sign. It could not have measured less than ten feet from wing to wing. Its colour was brown, with bright edges and white quills, and its fiery eyes were encircled by broad orange-shaded rings.
"My wife," said the peasant, "has reason to remember the lämmergeier. When she was three years old her father took her to a part of the mountains where they were hay-making, and not being able to work and attend to her at the same time, he set her down by the side of a hut. It was a fine sunny day, and Anna fell asleep. Her father, seeing her sleeping calmly, covered her face with a straw hat, and continued his work. Two hours afterwards he went to the spot, and Anna was gone. He searched for her everywhere, and all the haymakers assisted in the search, but Anna was nowhere to be found. My father and I-I was a mere lad at the time, five years older than Anna-were walking towards a mountain stream, three miles from where Anna had been sleeping, when I heard the cry of a child. It came from a precipice, and above this precipice a vulture was flying. We went in the direction of the cry, and found Anna lying on the edge of the precipice, clinging to the roots with her little hand. She was slipping down, and would have slipped to certain death had we been three minutes later. It was a difficult task to rescue her as it was, but we managed it, and carried her to her father. She had no cap to her head, and no shoes or stockings on her feet; she had lost them in her flight through the air in the vulture's beak. She has a scar on her left arm to this day as a remembrance of her acquaintance with the lämmergeier. So it fell out afterwards, when she was a young woman, that I married her."
Ever and again, as they walked onwards, Christian Almer turned to look upon the vulture, which remained perfectly still, with its wings outstretched, until it was hid from his sight by the peculiar formation of the valleys they were traversing.
Hitherto their course had lain amidst masses of the most beautiful flowers; gentians with purple bells, others spotted and yellow, with brilliant whorls of bloom, the lilac-flowered campanula, the anemone, the blue columbine and starwort, the lovely forget-me-not-which Christian Almer mentally likened to bits of heaven dropped down-and the Alpine rose, the queen of Alpine flowers. Now all was changed. The track was bare of foliage; not a blade of grass peeped up from the barren rocks.
"There is good reason for it," said the peasant; "here, long years ago, a man killed his brother in cold blood. Since that day no flowers will grow upon the spot. There are nights on which the spirit of the murderer wanders mournfully about these rocks; a black dog accompanies him, whose bark you can sometimes hear. This valley is accursed."
Soon afterwards the peasant left Christian Almer to the guidance of the children, and with them the young man spent the day, sharing contentedly with them the black bread and hard sausage they had brought for dinner. This mid-day meal was eaten as they sat beside a lake, in the waters of which there was not a sign of life, and Christian Almer noticed that, as the children ate, they watched the bosom of this lake with a strange and singular interest.
"What are you gazing at?" he asked, curious to learn.
"For the dead white trout," answered the boy. "Whenever a priest dies it floats upon the lake."
In the lower heights, where the fir-trees stretched their feathery tips to the clouds, they found the flower they were in search of, and the children were wild with delight. The sun was setting when they returned to the hut, tired and gratified with their day's wanderings. The peasant's wife smiled as she saw the edelweiss.
"A lucky love-flower," she said to Christian Almer.
These simple words proved to him how hard was the lesson of forgetfulness he was striving to learn; he was profoundly agitated by them.
Night fell, and the clouds grew black.
"The wind is rising," said the peasant; "an ill night for travellers. Here is one coming towards us."
It proved to be a guide who lived in the nearest post village, and who, duly commissioned for the service, brought to Christian Almer the letters of the Advocate and his wife.
"A storm is gathering," said the guide; "I must find shelter on the heights to-night."
In his lonely room Christian Almer broke the seals, and by the dull light of a single candle read the lines written by friend to friend, by lover to lover.
The thunder rolled over the mountains; the lightning flashed through the small window; the storm was upon him.
He read the letters once only, but every word was impressed clearly upon his brain. For an hour he sat in silence, gazing vacantly at the edelweiss on the table, the lucky love-flower.
The peasant's wife called to him, and asked if he wanted anything.
"Nothing," he replied, in a voice that sounded strange to him.
"I will leave the bread and milk on the table," she said. "Good-night."
He did not answer her, nor did he respond to the children's good-night. Their voices, the children's especially, seemed to his ears to come from a great distance.
A drop of rain fell from the roof upon the candle, and extinguished the light. For a long while he remained in darkness, until all in the hut were sleeping; then he went out into the wild night, clutching the letters tight in his hand.
He staggered almost blindly onwards, and in the course of half an hour found himself standing on a narrow and perilous bridge, from which the few travellers who passed that way could obtain a view of a torrent which dashed with sublime and terrific force over a precipice upon the rocks below, a thousand feet down.
"If I were to grow dizzy now!" he muttered, with a reckless laugh; and he tempted fate by leaning over the narrow bridge, and gazing downwards into the dark depths.
Indistinct shapes grew out of the mighty and eternal waterfall. Of hosts of angry men battling with each other; of rushing horses; of armies of vultures swooping down for prey; of accusing and beautiful faces; of smiling mouths and white teeth flashing; and, amidst the whirl, sounds of shrieks and laughter.
Suddenly he straightened himself, and tearing Adelaide's letter into a thousand pieces, flung the evidence of a treacherous love into the furious torrent of waters; and as he did so he thought that there were times in a man's life when death were the best blessing which Heaven could bestow upon him!
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRIAL OF GAUTRAN
The trial of Gautran was proceeding, and the court was thronged with an excited gathering of men and women, upon whom not a word in the story of the tragic drama was thrown away. Impressed by the great powers of the Advocate who had undertaken to appear for the accused, the most effective measures had been adopted to prove Gautran's guilt, and obtain a conviction.
It was a legal battle, fought with all the subtle weapons at the disposal of the law.
Gautran's prosecutors fought with faces unmasked, and with their hands displayed; the Advocate, on the contrary, was pursuing a course which none could fathom; nor did he give a clue to it. Long before the case was closed the jury were ready to deliver their verdict; but, calm and unmoved, the Advocate, with amazing patience, followed out his secret theory, the revelation of which was awaited, by those who knew him best and feared him most, with intense and painful curiosity.
Every disreputable circumstance in Gautran's life was raked up to display the odiousness of his character; his infamous career was
