The Alpine Fay: A Romance

by E. Werner

For three days and nights the rain had been pouring in torrents; the countless veins of water, wont to trickle harmlessly and in silver clearness from the heights, rushed in cataracts down into the valley; the brooks were swollen rivers, breaking through the forests, and tearing away with them huge rocks and uprooted pines, all hurrying towards the mountain-stream, whose waters steadily rose, and dashed their foaming, tumbling waves against the railway-dikes. They could no longer resist the savage onslaught, and at last they were flooded here and torn down there,--the wet, soggy ground gave way everywhere and carried with it woodwork and masonry. The bridges too could no longer resist; one after another succumbed to the assault of the waves, the force of which it was vain to try to stem. In consequence of the pouring rain, both ground and rock gave way; one of the stations was entirely destroyed, and the others were much injured. The raging wind increased tenfold all danger and the difficulty for the labourers. Had the engineer-in-chief not been at their head, the people must have given up in despair, and have merely looked on at the destruction they thought themselves powerless to prevent.

But Wolfgang Elmhorst fought the battle to the bitter end. Step by step, as he had once conquered this domain, he now defended it. He would not succumb, would not give over his work to ruin; but whilst he was thus putting forth all the energies of his nature in saving it from destruction there rang in his ears incessantly the last words of old Baron von Thurgau: 'Have a care of our mountains, lest, when you are so arrogantly interfering with them, they rush down upon you and shatter all your bridges and structures like reeds. I should like to stand by and see the accursed work a heap of ruins!'

The gloomy prophecy seemed near its fulfilment, after all these years. Forests and rocks had been penetrated, streams turned aside, and the spacious mountain-realm bound in the iron fetters that were to make it subservient to human purposes. Men had boasted that they had subdued and chained the Alpine Fay, and now just as their work was drawing to a close she had arisen from her cloudy throne and angrily protested. She was descending in storm and destruction, and before her breath all the proud structures of man's devising were crumbling to ruin. No courage, no energy, no desperate struggle, availed; the savage elemental Force hurled to destruction in the space of a few days all that which it had cost human ingenuity years of toil to effect, laughing to scorn those who had dreamed of subduing it.

The Wolkenstein bridge, it is true, stood secure and firm when everything else was being swept away. Even the white, seething foam tossed aloft by the dashing river did not reach it, suspended as it was at a dizzy height above the abyss. And all the blasts of heaven raged in vain against the iron ribs of the huge structure. It rested upon its rocky foundations, as if built to bid defiance to destruction for all eternity.

The station which served as a temporary habitation for the engineer-in-chief had since the beginning of the storm been the head-quarters where all reports were received and whence all orders were issued. This portion of the railway had been hitherto thought secure, for at this place it crossed one of the narrow, deep valleys, passed over the Wolkenstein bridge, and then on the lofty steep cliffs turned again to the mountain-river, which just here made a large curve. The freshet which was so destructive to the lower stretch of railway could not reach this upper portion. But now glacial torrents had broken loose from the Wolkenstein, and the masses of mud and fragments of rock which they brought with them extended even to the bridge. The danger here must have been imminent, for Elmhorst himself was on the spot directing the labourers.

In the prevailing confusion and hurry the arrival of the president and his companions was hardly noticed; one or two of the engineers, however, came towards them and confirmed the latest reports. In spite of the storm, the work went on with feverish persistence, crowds of labourers were busy near the bridge and also near the station, while the rain poured down in torrents and the wind howled so fiercely that it was often impossible to hear the shouted directions of the engineers.

Nordheim alighted from his horse and approached Elmhorst, who left his post and came to meet him. Both had believed that the interview in which the tie between them had been dissolved would be a final one, but they now saw and talked with each other daily, scarcely conscious, in the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen the railway, of any embarrassment in their relations. They knew best what there was to lose here, and a community of interest still united them closely.

"You are here on the upper stretch?" the president asked, anxiously. "And the lower----"

"Must be given up!" Wolfgang completed the sentence. "It was impossible to secure it any longer. The dikes are broken through, the bridges carried away. I have left only a few of the men to protect the stations, and have concentrated all my available force here. We must control these cataracts at all hazards."

Nordheim's uncertain glance sought first the bridge, and then the station, where a number of men were busy: "What are they doing there? You are having the house cleared out?"'