Then he waited. All was silent in the mountains! Then a wave of terror shook him to the bone. With one bound he got back inside the inn, shut the door, and thrust home the bolts; then he fell shivering into a chair, certain that he had just been called by his companion at the moment when he rendered up his soul.
Of that he was sure, as a man is sure of being alive or of eating bread. Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and three nights, somewhere out there, in a hole, in one of those deep untrodden ravines whose whiteness is more sinister than the darkness of a subterranean dungeon. He had been dying for two days and three nights, and a moment ago had succumbed, thinking of his companion. And his soul, scarce freed, had flitted to the inn where Ulrich lay sleeping, and had called him by the mysterious and awful power that the souls of the dead have to haunt the living. It had cried aloud, that voiceless soul, in the afflicted soul of the sleeper; had cried its last farewell, or its reproach, or its curse upon the man who had given up the search too soon.
And Ulrich felt it there, quite close, behind the wall, behind the door he had just shut. It was wandering, like a night bird brushing against a lighted window with its feathers; the frenzied youth was on the point of screaming with horror. He wanted to run away and dared not go out, for there the phantom would remain, day and night, round the inn, so long as the old guide’s body remained undiscovered and unburied in the hallowed ground of a cemetery.
Dawn came, and Kunzi recovered some measure of confidence at the sun’s shining return. He prepared his meal, and made broth for the dog; then sat motionless in a chair, in agony of soul, thinking of the old man lying under the snow.
Then, as soon as night covered the mountains again, new terrors began to assail him. He was walking now about the dark kitchen, badly lit by the flame of a single candle. He walked from one end of the room to the other, in long strides, listening, listening for that terrifying scream of the other night to come again across the melancholy silence outside. The poor wretch felt lonelier than any man had ever been! He was alone in that immense desert of snow, alone, two thousand metres above the inhabited earth, above human dwellings, above the roaring, palpitating stir of life, alone in the frozen sky! He was tortured by a mad desire to escape, anywhither, anyhow, to get down to Loëche by flinging himself into the abyss; but he dared not even open the door, certain that the other man, the dead man, would bar his way, that he too might not be left alone in the heights.
Towards midnight, weary of walking, overcome with anguish and terror, he drowsed at last in his chair, for he dreaded his bed as a man dreads a haunted place.
And suddenly the piercing cry of the previous night tore at his ears, so loud and shrill that Ulrich stretched out his arms to repel the ghost, and, chair and all, fell over on to his back.
Sam, awakened by the noise, began to bark as frightened dogs will bark, and prowled round the room, seeking the spot whence came the danger. Coming to the door, he sniffed beneath it, panting, sniffling, and whining, with hair on end and tail erect.
Kunzi had risen in terror and, holding his chair by one of its legs, cried out: “Don’t come in, don’t come in, or I’ll kill you.” And the dog, excited by his threats, barked furiously at the invisible foe against whom his master was shouting defiance.
Little by little, Sam calmed down and went back and lay down on the hearth, but he remained uneasy, with head erect and shining eyes, and snarled through his teeth.
Ulrich too recovered his composure, but, feeling that his fear was sapping his strength, he went to get a bottle of brandy from the cupboard, and drank several glasses of it, one after another. His thoughts became vague; his courage was strengthened; a burning fever glided into his veins.
He ate practically nothing next day, limiting his diet to alcohol. And for several days on end he lived in a state of bestial drunkenness. As soon as thoughts of Gaspard Hari returned to him, he started drinking again, and continued till he fell to the ground, completely intoxicated. There he would lie, face downwards, dead drunk, his limbs twisted, snoring, with his forehead to the floor. But no sooner had he digested the maddening, burning liquor than the same cry: “Ulrich!” woke him like a bullet piercing his skull; and he rose, still tottering, stretching out his hands to keep from falling, and calling Sam to his aid. And the dog, who seemed to be going mad like his master, would rush at the door, scratching it with his claws and gnawing it with his long white teeth, while the young man, with upturned face and neck straining backwards, swallowed the brandy in great gulps, like cold water drunk after a race; and presently the spirit dulled his thoughts again, and his memory, and his frantic terror.
In three weeks he got through his entire stock of alcohol. But this perpetual drunkenness merely dulled his terror; and it rose with renewed fury as soon as he could no longer assuage it. Then his obsession, made worse by a month of drunkenness, and constantly growing in that utter solitude, pierced his brain like a gimlet. He had come now to striding up and down his dwelling like
