“Depend upon it,” said the startled Ebbo, “that he has got up amongst those rocks where the dead chamois rolled down last summer;” then, as Christina uttered a faint cry of terror, Heinz added, “Fear not, lady, those are not the jodeln of one who has met with a hurt. Baron Friedel has the sense to be patient rather than risk his bones if he cannot move safely in the dark.”
“Up after him!” said Ebbo, emitting a variety of shouts intimating speedy aid, and receiving a halloo in reply that reassured even his mother. Equipped with a rope and sundry torches of pinewood, Heinz and two of the serfs were speedily ready, and Christina implored her son to let her come so far as where she should not impede the others. He gave her his arm, and Heinz held his torch so as to guide her up a winding path, not in itself very steep, but which she could never have climbed had daylight shown her what it overhung. Guided by the constant exchange of jodeln, they reached a height where the wind blew cold and wild, and Ebbo pointed to an intensely black shadow overhung by a peak rising like the gable of a house into the sky. “Yonder lies the tarn,” he said. “Don’t stir. This way lies the cliff. Fried-mund!” exchanging the jodel for the name.
“Here!—this way! Under the Red Eyrie,” called back the wanderer; and steering their course round the rocks above the pool, the rescuers made their way towards the base of the peak, which was in fact the summit of the mountain, the top of the Eagle’s Ladder, the highest step of which they had attained. The peak towered over them, and beneath, the castle lights seemed as if it would be easy to let a stone fall straight down on them.
Friedel’s cry seemed to come from under their feet. “I am here! I am safe; only it grew so dark that I durst not climb up or down.”
The Schneiderlein explained that he would lower down a rope, which, when fastened round Friedel’s waist, would enable him to climb safely up; and, after a breathless space, the torchlight shone upon the longed-for face, and Friedel springing on the path, cried, “The mother!—and here!”—
“Oh, Friedel, where have you been? What is this in your arms?”
He showed them the innocent face of a little white kid.
“Whence is it, Friedel?”
He pointed to the peak, saying, “I was lying on my back by the tarn, when my lady eagle came sailing overhead, so low that I could see this poor little thing, and hear it bleat.”
“Thou hast been to the Eyrie—the inaccessible Eyrie!” exclaimed Ebbo, in amazement.