With one spring he seized the tinder-box and struck the light: the wood, smeared with tar, ignited when touched, and before a minute elapsed a bright pillar of flame sprung up into the dark sky. Hans, not content with leaving any thing to chance, seized a brand and touched the fagots here and there, till the whole reeking mass blazed out—a perfect column of fire.
No sooner had the leading files turned the cliff, than with a cry of horror and vengeance they sprang forward. It was too late: the signal was already answered from the Kaiser-fells, and a glittering star on the Gebatsch told where another fire was about to blaze forth. Hans had but time to turn and fly down the mountain as the soldiers drew up. A particle of burning wood had touched his jacket, however, and, guided by the sparks, four bullets followed him. It was at the moment when he had turned for a last look at the blazing pile. He fell, but, speedily regaining his feet, continued his flight. His mission was but half accomplished if the village were not apprised of their danger. All the dangers of his upward course were now to be encountered in his waking state; and with the agony of a terrible wound—for the bullet had pierced him beneath the left breast—half frantic with pain and excitement, he bounded from cliff to cliff, clearing the torrents by leaps despair alone could have made, and at length staggered rather than ran along the village street, and fell at the door of the Vorsteher’s house.
Already the whole village was a-foot: the signal blazing on the mountain had called them to arm, but none could tell by whom it was lighted, or by which path the enemy might be expected. They now gathered around the poor boy, who, in accents broken and faltering, could scarce reply.
“What! thou hast done it?” cried the Vorsteher, angrily. “So, then, thou silly fool, it is to thy mad ravings we owe all this terror—a terror that may cost our country bitter tears! Who prompted thee to this?”
“The lame soldier told me they were coming,” said Hans, with eyes swimming in tears.
“The lame soldier!—he is mad!” cried an old peasant: “there is none such in all the Dorf.”
“Yes, yes,” reiterated Hans; “they flung him away last night, because he was lame—lame, and a cripple like me: but he told me they were coming; and I had only time to reach the Kaiser-fells when they gained the top too.”
“Wretched fool!” said the Vorsteher, sternly; “thy mad reading and wild fancies have ruined the Vaterland. See, there is the signal from Pfunds, and the whole Tyrol will be up! If thy life were worth anything, thou shouldst die for this!”
“So shall I!” said Hans, sobbing; “the bullet is yet here.” And he opened his jacket, and displayed to their horrified gaze the whole chest bathed in blood, and the round, blue mark of a gun-shot wound.
This terrible evidence dispelled every doubt of Hans’ story: all its strange incoherency vanished before that pool of blood, which, welling forth at every respiration, ran in currents over him. Dreadful, too, as the tidings were, the better nature of the poor villagers prevailed over their fears, and in the sorrow the child’s fate excited all other thoughts were lost.