CHAPTER XVIII.
With a quick step Garcias led the way towards that side of the hill which from its position was cast into shadow, and taking an upward path, that we both knew, he soon arrived in those high and lonely parts of the mountain, where solitude and silence reigned undisturbed. High above earth's habitations, nothing looked upon us but the clear blue sky and the bright calm moon, whose beams fell soft and silvery upon the tall mountain peaks around--poured into every valley--danced in every stream, and contrasted the broad, deep shadows thrown by each projecting rock, with the bright effulgence of those spots whereon she glowed with her full power.
It was a grand and solemn scene; and there was something inexpressibly awful in the calm, sublime aspect of the giant world in which we stood--in the silence--in the moonlight--in the deep, clear expanse of the profound blue sky, especially when each of those who contemplated it had heavy on his heart the weight of human blood. It felt as if we were more immediately in the presence of Heaven itself--as if the calm, bright eye of eternal Justice looked sternly into the deepest recesses of our bosoms.
Garcias seemed to feel nearly as much as I did; and bending his eyes upon the ground, he pursued his way silently and fast, till, descending for some hundred yards, and turning the angle of the hill, we came under a group of high trees, which formed a beautiful object on the mountain side when viewed from the windows of the Château de l'Orme, and from which I could now discern the dwelling of my ancestors.
Here the smuggler stopped as if to allow me a last view of the scenes of my infancy; and my eye instantly running down the valley, rested on the grey towers and pinnacles of my paternal mansion with a lingering regret impossible to describe.
There lay all that I loved on earth, the objects of every better affection of my nature--there lay the scenes amongst which every happier hour had passed--there lay the spot where every early dream had been formed--where hope had arisen--where every wish returned; and I was leaving it--leaving it, perhaps, for ever, with a stain upon my name, and the kindred blood of her most dear upon my hand. My heart swelled as if it would have burst, my brain burned as with fire, and my eyes would fain have wept.
I struggled long to prevent them, and I should have succeeded; but just while I was gazing--while a thousand overpowering remembrances and bitter regrets seemed tearing my heart to pieces, a nightingale broke out in the trees above my head, and poured forth so wild, so sweet, so melancholy a song, that my excited feelings would bear no more, and the tears rolled over my cheeks like the large drops of a thunder-storm.
"Poor boy!" said Garcias, "I am sorry for thee! I can feel now, more than I could this morning, what thou feelest, for, in truth, I would that I had not slain that Derville so rashly: and, I know not why, but I wish what I never wished before, that the moon was not so bright--it seems as if that poor wretch were looking at me. But come, 'tis no use to think of these things. When we are in Spain we will get us absolution, and that is all that we can do. Pardon me, monseigneur," he added, suddenly resuming that peculiar sort of haughtiness which leads many a proud man in an inferior station to give a full portion of ceremonious deference to his superior--"pardon me, if now, or in future, I treat you, too, like a companion of Pedro Garcias, the smuggler. During this day, my wish to check your grief has made me unceremonious, and till you can return, perhaps you had better waive that respect which your rank entitles you to require, for it may not please you hereafter, to have many of those with whom you now consort for a time, boast of having been your very good friends and fellow adventurers."
I told him to call me what he liked, and to use his own discretion in regard to what account he gave of me to those, whose companion I was about to become. Little, indeed, cared I for any part of the future: it had nothing for hope to fix upon; and once having withdrawn my eyes from that valley, and turned upon the path before me, I was reckless about all the rest.
It seemed, however, that Garcias had found a relief in breaking the dead silence which had hung upon us so long, for he continued speaking on various topics as we went, and gradually succeeded in drawing my mind from the actual objects of my regret. Not that I forgot my grief; far from it. It still lay a dead and heavy weight upon my heart; but my thoughts did not continue to trace every painful remembrance with the agonizing minuteness which they had lately done. Such is ever the first effect of that balm which Time pours into every wound. It scarcely seems to lessen the anguish, but it renders it less defined.
Gradually I listened and replied, and though each minute or two my mind reverted to myself, yet the intervals became longer, and I found it every time more easy than the last to abstract my thoughts from my own situation, and to apply them to the subjects on which he spoke.
For more than two hours we continued walking on till we arrived at the heights nearly opposite to Argelez, during which time we had climbed the hills and descended into the valleys more than once. We were now again upon the very crest of the mountain, and the moon was just sinking behind the hills to the west of the Balindrau, when Garcias paused and pointed down the course of a stream that burst precipitately over the side of the hill with so perpendicular a fall that it almost deserved the name of a cataract.
The body of water, though then but a rivulet, was at some part of the year undoubtedly considerable, for it had channelled for itself a deep ravine, which, for some space, wound away from the valley, as if obstinately resolved to bear its tribute in any other direction than towards the principal river that flowed in the midst: but, after pursuing these capricious meanderings for a considerable way, it was obliged at length to follow the direction of the hills, and turn towards the valley in its own despite, as we often see, in some far province, a stubborn contemner of established authorities pursue for a while his own wilful way, fancying himself a man of great spirit and an independent soul, till comes some stiff official of the law, who turns him sneaking back into the common course of life.
The bottom of the ravine, left free by the shrinking of the stream, was lined on either hand with the most luxuriant verdure, and overhung by a thousand shrubs and trees, now in their ruffling dresses of summer green. Where we then stood, however, many hundred yards above, with the moon, as I have said, sinking behind the opposite mountains, all that I could see was a dark and fearful chasm below, at the bottom of which I caught every now and then the flash and sparkle of the stream, whose roar, as it broke from fall to fall, reached my ear even at that height.
Down this abyss it was that Garcias pointed, saying that our journey's end lay there, for the present.
"If you are a true mountaineer," added he, "you will be able to follow me; but attempt it not if you feel the least fear; for I have seldom seen a place more likely to break the neck of any but a good cragsman."
"Go on," replied I, "I have no fear;" and, indeed, I had become so reckless about life, that had it been the jaws of hell, I would have plunged in. And yet it appeared I was even then in the act of flying from death. Man is so made up of inconsistencies, that this would not have been extraordinary, granting it to have been the case--but it was not so. I was not flying from death, but from ignominy and shame, and the reproachful eyes of those I loved.
Garcias led the way; and certainly never did a more hazardous and precarious path receive the steps of two human beings. Its course lay down the very face of the precipice over which the stream fell, and the only tenable steps that it afforded were formed by the broken faces of the schistus rock, without one bough of shrub or tree to offer a hold for the hands. The river at the same time kept roaring in our ears, within a yard of our course; and every now and then, where it took a more furious bound than ordinary, it dashed its spray in our faces, and over our path, confusing the sight, whose range was already circumscribed by the darkness, and rendering the rock so slippy that nothing but the talons of an eagle would have fastened steadily upon it.
At length we came to a spot of smooth turf, with still the same degree of perpendicular declination; and to keep one's feet became now almost impossible; so that nothing seemed left but to lie down and slip from the top to the bottom. It was a dangerous experiment, for the descent might probably have terminated in a precipice which would have been difficult to avoid; but I little cared: and, with the usual success of boldness, I lighted on a small round plot of turf, crowning another turn of the ravine. A man anxious for life would, most probably, have avoided the course of the stream, slipped past the spot on which I found a safe resting place, and been dashed over the precipice which lay scarce two yards from me.
In a moment Garcias was by my side, and asked, with some concern lest his place of retreat had been discovered, whether I had ever visited that spot before, for I seemed to know it, he said, as well as he did himself. Having assured him I never had, and that my fortunate descent was entirely accidental, he laid his hand on my arm, as if to stay me from any farther trial of the kind. "You have escaped strangely," said he: "but never make the same experiment again, unless you are something more than merely careless about life. We are now close upon my men," he added, "and we must give them notice of our approach or we may risk a shot;" and he stooped over the edge of the cliff looking down into the ravine.
It was here that the trees and shrubs, which lined thickly the lower parts of the dell first began to sprout; and, forming a dark screen between our eyes and the course of the stream, they would have cut off all view of what was passing below, had it been day; but at that hour, when all was darkness around us, and no glare of sunshine outshone any other light, we could just catch through the foliage the sparkling of a fire, about forty yards below us; and as we gazed, a very musical voice broke out in a Spanish song. Being directly above the singer, the sounds rose distinctly to our ears, so that we could very well distinguish the words that he sang, which were to the following tenour, as near as I can recollect:--
SONG.
Tread thou the mountain, brother, brother!
Tread thou the mountain wild!
In each other land men betray one another;
Be thou then the mountain's child.
I.
Hark! how hidalgo to hidalgo vows,
To serve him he'd hazard his life--
But woe to the foolish and confident spouse
If he leave him alone with his wife.--
Tread then the mountain, brother, brother!
Tread then the mountain wild!
In each other land men betray one another;
Be thou then the mountain's child.
II.
Lo! how the merchant to merchant will say,
His credit and purse to command:
But let him fall bankrupt, I doubt, well-a-day!
No credit he'll have at his hand.
Tread then the mountain, brother, brother!
Tread then the mountain wild!
In each other land men betray one another;
Be thou then the mountain's child.
III.
Lo! how the statesman will promise his tool,
To raise him to honours some day:
But when he's done all he would wish, the poor fool
Will regret taking fine words for pay.
Tread then the mountain, brother, brother!
Tread then the mountain wild!
In each other land men betray one another;
Be thou then the mountain's child.
IV.
Hark! what the courtier vows to his king,
To serve him whatever befal;
But if evil luck dark misfortune should bring,
The courtier turns sooner than all.
Tread then the mountain, brother, brother!
Tread then the mountain wild!
In court, crowd, and city, men cheat one another;
Be thou then the mountain's child.
"He says true! By Saint Jago, he says true!" cried Garcias, who had been listening as well as myself. "Thank God, for being born a mountaineer!"
He ended his self-gratulation with a long whistle, so shrill that it reached the ears of the singer, to whom the noise of our voices had not arrived from the height we were above him, although his song by the natural tendency of sounds had come up to us. He answered the signal of his captain immediately, and we instantly began to descend, making steps of the boles and roots of the trees, till lighting once more on somewhat level ground, we stood beside his watch-fire. The singer was a tall, fine Arragonese, about my own age, or perhaps somewhat older, who had been thrown out as a sentinel to guard the little encampment of the smugglers, which lay a couple of hundred yards farther down the ravine. He bore a striking resemblance to Garcias, whom he called cousin, and also seemed to possess some portion of his gigantic strength, if one might judge by the swelling muscles of his legs and arms, which were easily discernible through the tight netted silk breeches and stockings he wore in common with most of his companions.
He gazed upon me for a moment or two with some surprise, and I returned his look with one of equal curiosity. In truth, I should not particularly have liked to encounter him as an adversary; for with his long gun, his knife, and his pistols, added to the vigour and activity indicated by his figure, he would have offered as formidable an opponent as I ever beheld. No questions, however, did he ask concerning me. Not a word, not an observation did he make; but resuming the characteristic gravity of the Spaniard, from which, perhaps, he thought his song might have somewhat derogated in the eyes of a stranger, he merely replied to a question of his cousin, that all had passed tranquilly during his absence, and cast himself down upon his checkered cloak, by the side of the watch-fire, with an air of the most perfect indifference.
At another time I might have smiled to see how true it is that nations have their affectations as well as individuals, but I was in no smiling mood, and were I to own the truth, I turned away with a feeling of contemptuous anger at his arrogation of gravity, fully as ridiculous in me as even his mock solemnity. What had I to do to be angry with him? I asked myself, after a moment's reflection: I was not born to be the whipper of all fools; and if I was, I thought my castigation had certainly better begin with myself.
Garcias led me on to the rest of his companions, who were stretched sleeping on the ground; some wrapped in their cloaks, some partly sheltered from the winds, which in those mountains lose not their wintry sharpness till summer is far advanced, by little stone walls, built up from the various masses of rock that from time to time had rolled down the mountain, and strewed the bottom of the ravine. The younger men, though engaged in a life of danger and risk, slept on with the fearless slumber of youth; but four or five of the elder smugglers, whom ancient habits of watchful anxiety rendered light of sleep, started up with musket and dagger in their hands, long before our steps had reached their halting-place.
The figure of Garcias, however, soon quieted their alarm; and I was astonished to see how little agitation the return of their absent leader, from what had been, and always must be, a dangerous part of their enterprise, caused amongst them; nor did my presence excite any particular attention. Garcias informed them simply, that I was a friend he had long known, who now came to join them; on which they welcomed me cordially, without farther inquiry, giving me merely the Buenas noches tenga usted caballero, and assigning me a spot to sleep in, near the horses, which was indeed the place of honour, being more sheltered than any other.