“For my sister,” replied Eberhard, his voice thickening again. “My little sister lies at the point of death, and I have sworn to her that a priest she shall have. Wilt thou come, or shall I drag thee down the pass?”
“I come, I come with all my heart, sir knight,” was the ready response. “A few moments and I am at your bidding.”
He stepped back into the hermit’s cave, whence a stair led up to the chapel. The anchorite followed him, whispering—“Good father, escape! There will be full time ere he misses you. The north door leads to the Gemsbock’s Pass; it is open now.”
“Why should I baulk him? Why should I deny my office to the dying?” said Norbert.
“Alas! holy father, thou art new to this country, and know’st not these men of blood! It is a snare to make the convent ransom thee, if not worse. The Freiherrinn is a fiend for malice, and the Freiherr is excommunicate.”
“I know it, my son,” said Norbert; “but wherefore should their child perish unassoilzied?”
“Art coming, priest?” shouted Eberhard, from his stand at the mouth of the cave.
And, as Norbert at once appeared with the pyx and other appliances that he had gone to fetch, the Freiherr held out his hand with an offer to “carry his gear for him;” and, when the monk refused, with an inward shudder at entrusting a sacred charge to such unhallowed hands, replied, “You will have work enow for both hands ere the castle is reached.”
But Father Norbert was by birth a sturdy Switzer, and thought little of these Swabian Alps; and he climbed after his guide through the most rugged passages of Eberhard’s shortest and most perpendicular cut without a moment’s hesitation, and with agility worthy of a chamois. The young baron turned for a moment, when the level of the castle had been gained, perhaps to see whether he were following, but at the same time came to a sudden, speechless pause.
On the white masses of vapour that floated on the opposite side of the mountain was traced a gigantic shadowy outline of a hermit, with head bent eagerly forward, and arm outstretched.