"Here!" she sighed. "Yes, yes, I see the lights, I hear the angels' music. Hush! my dear one's voice is among them. Gideon, Gideon my darling, I am waiting for thee!"
She slid from my supporting arms, which she had not now the power to thrust from her--indeed she was not conscious that they were around her--and sank upon the white steps of the door which, open, would have led her to her son's chamber. Her back was towards this door, her face towards the house occupied by Pretzel.
"Her strength is spent," I said to Anna.
As I uttered these words the upper window of Pretzel's house, immediately above the snow-clad beam, was thrust violently open, and a man issued therefrom, and sliding cautiously upon the wooden support, embraced it with his arms and legs. At the same moment a glare of light made itself visible in the room from which he emerged. I grasped Anna's arm, and her eyes followed the direction of mine. Entranced, we watched the man winding his way, inch by inch, along the beam, to the opposite window, which gave light to the room in which Gideon Wolf slept. So perilous was this enterprise that we held our breaths in very fear; we stood like stone, transfixed.
The glare in the room the man had left grew stronger and stronger, and like a great dark snake the man, whose body was stretched lengthways upon the beam, slid slowly onward till he reached Gideon Wolf's window. Then, with one hand cautiously raised, he strove to open this window; but he strove in vain. The window was fast, and no effort of his could move it. He could use but one hand; the beam was slippery with snow and ice-flakes, bits of which, dislodged by his movements, fell at our feet. His other arm and hand embraced the beam, to save himself from falling to certain death. One glance did I give at Louisa Wolf. A transport of rapture was on her face; she made a movement as though she were pressing a baby to her breast.
"See," whispered Anna, pointing upward, and she clung to me, trembling in every limb, "he is turning back."
Yes, foiled in his endeavors to open the window, the man, by a wonderful exercise of strength, twisted himself round, and was now sliding towards the room he had left. His progress was slower and more laborious; his exertions had well-nigh exhausted him.
"He will be killed--he will be killed!" gasped Anna. "He will fall, and die here at our feet! Help--help!"
"Do not cry out," I said, and with my hand on her mouth I prevented her screams from being heard.
"We cannot help him before he reaches Pretzel's window. If you rouse Louisa Wolf to consciousness she will go mad. Do you not see who it is up there?"