“So much the better, then; I shall have the pleasure of your company. But pray help me to draw my sword, so that I may be able to defend myself in case of need.”
“So you carry a sword which requires two men to draw it! Well, let’s look at it,” and with that the two men planted their legs one against the other, grasped the sword with both hands, and tugged away at it for a long time, till at last it flew out of its sheath so suddenly that Clement the Clerk nearly fell sprawling.
Clement then called for a jar of honey, rubbed the rusty blade all over with the viscid stuff, and stuck it back into its sheath.
“And now let us be off, young man,” said he to the Wallach, who hastily took his cap and a small axe from the ground, and went out without once looking behind him.
His mother seized him by the hand—
“Wilt thou not first kiss thy dead sweetheart?”
Sange Moarte did not even turn his head round, but drew his hand out of his mother’s and went with the two strange men towards the darkening woods.
All that night the adventurers were traversing a deep dell. Gigantic perpendicular rocks rose up on each side of them, only above their heads shimmered a narrow streak of starry sky.
Towards morning they found themselves among the Carpathian Alps.
It was a dazzling spectacle. In the distance diamond-peaked crystal mountains covered with white snowfields, striped here and there by dark-green lines of pine forest. Close beside them is a basalt rock, consisting of angular columns as large as towers, standing side by side like the pipes of a gigantic organ, with their summits crowned by wreaths of round trees. A white, semitransparent cloud floats across this rock, hiding all but its summit and its base. From time to time a lightning-flash darts from this cloud, and the reverberated echoes of the thunder-peals resound like long-drawn-out chords from this majestic organ of Nature’s own workmanship.
Over yonder, a mountain chasm suddenly comes into view, where two rocky fragments, whose rugged surfaces seem to exactly correspond, stand face to face. Through this rocky chasm, many hundred feet below, rushes a stray branch of the icy Szamos, disappearing among the thick oak woods which cover its banks.
In one place the rocks form a flight of steps, steps never fashioned for the foot of man, for each of them is as high as a tower; in another place the rocky boulders are piled one on the top of the other, in such a way that if the undermost block were disturbed, the whole of the enormous mass would fall into a differently-shaped group.
Everything indicates that here the dominion of the world and of man ends. Not a single human habitation is visible from the dizzy heights; even vegetation is rare and scanty; on every side bald rocks and gaping chasms, among which the mountain torrents toss and tumble; only the wild goat is there to be seen leaping from crag to crag.
“Which is the way now?” asked Clement of his guide, casting an anxious glance at his surroundings, in which the possibility of hopelessly losing oneself was more than probable.
“Trust only to me,” said Sange Moarte, and he guided them through the uninhabited wilderness with the unerring precision of instinct. In places where it seemed impossible to go a step further, he always found a path. He recollected every root or shrub which could serve as a support to clamberers down the mountain side; every fallen tree which spanned the abyss, every narrow ledge which could only be passed by bending forward over the precipice and holding fast behind to the fissures of the rock, was familiar to him; in short he seemed quite at home in this interminable labyrinth.
“We are near,” he cried suddenly, after clambering up a steep rocky wall and surveying the horizon; then he held out his hands to his companions and drew them up after him.
A new spectacle then presented itself.
The opposite slope of the rocky ridge which they had just ascended was perfectly smooth and shiny, and encompassed the whole region in a semicircle, forming a sort of basin, at the very bottom of which—and it was six hundred feet deep—lay a little mountain lake, the dark-green waters of which perpetually boiled and bubbled, though not a breath of air was stirring: perhaps it felt the ebb and flow of ocean. The opposite side of the rocky basin was formed by a gigantic chain of mountains, fringed only at its base by fir trees, and at the point where the two mountain systems met, a small stream in a deep bed trickled into the little mountain lake. The masses of ice which had fallen into the valley formed a crystal vault over this stream.
“Whither are we going?” asked Clement, aghast.
“To the source of that brook,” returned Sange Moarte. “It has dug its way through the ice, and by following its course we shall come to the place we seek.”
“But how are we to get there? This rocky slope is as smooth as a mirror; if a man begins sliding down it there is no stopping till he plumps into the lake.”
“You have only to take care. We must lie on our backs and glide down sideways. Here and there you will find a tuft of Alpine roses to cling on to. But you’ve nothing to fear if you slide down barefoot. Do as I do.”
A hair-bristling pastime truly!
Taking off their sandals they held on by their hands and feet to the smooth, shelving, stony wall, at the foot of which lay the darkly-gleaming, fathomless lake.
They had already slided halfway down the incline, when from the mountain opposite arose a muffled, mysterious roar. They felt the cliff on which they lay quaking beneath them.
“Ha! stay where you are,” cried Sange Moarte, looking back at them. “An avalanche from the mountain opposite is
