CHAPTER III
HOW MR. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HEPROSPERED THEREIN
The King of the Golden River had hardly made the extraordinary exitrelated in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz came roaring intothe house very savagely drunk. The discovery of the total loss oftheir last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just enoughto enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily for aquarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they dropped intoa couple of chairs and requested to know what he had got to say forhimself. Gluck told them his story, of which, of course, they did notbelieve a word. They beat him again, till their arms were tired, andstaggered to bed. In the morning, however, the steadiness with whichhe adhered to his story obtained him some degree of credence; theimmediate consequence of which was that the two brothers, afterwrangling a long time on the knotty question, which of them should tryhis fortune first, drew their swords and began fighting. The noise ofthe fray alarmed the neighbors, who, finding they could not pacify thecombatants, sent for the constable.
Hans, on hearing this, contrived to escape, and hid himself; butSchwartz was taken before the magistrate, fined for breaking the peace,and, having drunk out his last penny the evening before, was throwninto prison till he should pay.
When Hans heard this, he was much delighted, and determined to set outimmediately for the Golden River. How to get the holy water was thequestion. He went to the priest, but the priest could not give anyholy water to so abandoned a character. So Hans went to vespers in theevening for the first time in his life and, under pretense of crossinghimself, stole a cupful and returned home in triumph.
Next morning he got up before the sun rose, put the holy water into astrong flask, and two bottles of wine and some meat in a basket, slungthem over his back, took his alpine staff in his hand, and set off forthe mountains.
On his way out of the town he had to pass the prison, and as he lookedin at the windows, whom should he see but Schwartz himself peeping outof the bars and looking very disconsolate.
"Good morning, brother," said Hans; "have you any message for the Kingof the Golden River?"
Schwartz gnashed his teeth with rage and shook the bars with all hisstrength, but Hans only laughed at him and, advising him to makehimself comfortable till he came back again, shouldered his basket,shook the bottle of holy water in Schwartz's face till it frothedagain, and marched off in the highest spirits in the world.
It was indeed a morning that might have made anyone happy, even with noGolden River to seek for. Level lines of dewy mist lay stretched alongthe valley, out of which rose the massy mountains, their lower cliffsin pale gray shadow, hardly distinguishable from the floating vapor butgradually ascending till they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharptouches of ruddy color along the angular crags, and pierced, in long,level rays, through their fringes of spearlike pine. Far above shot upred, splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered intomyriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snowtraced down their chasms like a line of forked lightning; and farbeyond and far above all these, fainter than the morning cloud butpurer and changeless, slept, in the blue sky, the utmost peaks of theeternal snow.
The Golden River, which sprang from one of the lower and snowlesselevations, was now nearly in shadow--all but the uppermost jets ofspray, which rose like slow smoke above the undulating line of thecataract and floated away in feeble wreaths upon the morning wind.
On this object, and on this alone, Hans's eyes and thoughts were fixed.Forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set off at an imprudentrate of walking, which greatly exhausted him before he had scaled thefirst range of the green and low hills. He was, moreover, surprised,on surmounting them, to find that a large glacier, of whose existence,notwithstanding his previous knowledge of the mountains, he had beenabsolutely ignorant, lay between him and the source of the GoldenRiver. He entered on it with the boldness of a practiced mountaineer,yet he thought he had never traversed so strange or so dangerous aglacier in his life. The ice was excessively slippery, and out of allits chasms came wild sounds of gushing water--not monotonous or low,but changeful and loud, rising occasionally into drifting passages ofwild melody, then breaking off into short, melancholy tones or suddenshrieks resembling those of human voices in distress or pain. The icewas broken into thousands of confused shapes, but none, Hans thought,like the ordinary forms of splintered ice. There seemed a curiousEXPRESSION about all their outlines--a perpetual resemblance to livingfeatures, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful shadows andlurid lights played and floated about and through the pale bluepinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the traveler, while hisears grew dull and his head giddy with the constant gush and roar ofthe concealed waters. These painful circumstances increased upon himas he advanced; the ice crashed and yawned into fresh chasms at hisfeet, tottering spires nodded around him and fell thundering across hispath; and though he had repeatedly faced these dangers on the mostterrific glaciers and in the wildest weather, it was with a new andoppressive feeling of panic terror that he leaped the last chasm andflung himself, exhausted and shuddering, on the firm turf of themountain.
He had been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became aperilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshinghimself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice.This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited hishardy frame, and with the indomitable spirit of avarice he resumed hislaborious journey.
His way now lay straight up a ridge of bare red rocks, without a bladeof grass to ease the foot or a projecting angle to afford an inch ofshade from the south sun. It was past noon and the rays beat intenselyupon the steep path, while the whole atmosphere was motionless andpenetrated with heat. Intense thirst was soon added to the bodilyfatigue with which Hans was now afflicted; glance after glance he caston the flask of water which hung at his belt. "Three drops are enough,"at last thought he; "I may, at least, cool my lips with it."
He opened the flask and was raising it to his lips, when his eye fellon an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved. It wasa small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst. Itstongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and aswarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat. Its eyemoved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank,spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not knowhow it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly comeacross the blue sky.
The path became steeper and more rugged every moment, and the high hillair, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever.The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; theywere all distant, and his thirst increased every moment. Another hourpassed, and he again looked down to the flask at his side; it was halfempty, but there was much more than three drops in it. He stopped toopen it, and again, as he did so, something moved in the path abovehim. It was a fair child, stretched nearly lifeless on the rock, itsbreast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed, and its lips parched andburning. Hans eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed on. And a darkgray cloud came over the sun, and long, snakelike shadows crept upalong the mountain sides. Hans struggled on. The sun was sinking, butits descent seemed to bring no coolness; the leaden height of the deadair pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal was near. He saw thecataract of the Golden River springing from the hillside scarcely fivehundred feet above him. He paused for a moment to breathe, and sprangon to complete his task.
At this instant a faint cry fell on his ear. He turned, and saw agray-haired old man extended on the rocks. His eyes were sunk, hisfeatures deadly pale and gathered into an expression of despair."Water!" he stretched his arms to Hans, and cried feebly, "Water! I amdying."
"I have none," replied Hans; "thou hast had thy share of life." Hestrode over the prostrate body and darted on. And a flash of b
luelightning rose out of the East, shaped like a sword; it shook thriceover the whole heaven and left it dark with one heavy, impenetrableshade. The sun was setting; it plunged towards the horizon like aredhot ball. The roar of the Golden River rose on Hans's ear. He stoodat the brink of the chasm through which it ran. Its waves were filledwith the red glory of the sunset; they shook their crests like tonguesof fire, and flashes of bloody light gleamed along their foam. Theirsound came mightier and mightier on his senses; his brain grew giddywith the prolonged thunder. Shuddering he drew the flask from hisgirdle and hurled it into the center of the torrent. As he did so, anicy chill shot through his limbs; he staggered, shrieked, and fell.The waters closed over his cry, and the moaning of the river rosewildly into the night as it gushed over
THE BLACK STONE