When Ekkehard that evening was sitting before his pine-wood torch, he heard a thundering noise, as if the mountains were toppling over. He started, and put his hand up to his forehead, fearing that the fever was coming back.
This time, however, it was no fancy of a sick brain. A hollow echo boomed forth from the other side, rolling through the glens of the Sigelsalp, and Maarwiese. Then, there followed a sound like the breaking of mighty trees,--a clattering fall, and all was silent again. Only a low, plaintive hum, could be heard all the night, coming up from the valley.
Ekkehard did not sleep; yet, since his experiences on the Seealpsee, he did not quite trust the evidence of his senses. In the early morning he went up to the Ebenalp. Benedicta stood before their cottage door and greeted him with a snow-ball. The herdsman laughed when questioned about the nightly disturbance.
"That music you will hear often enough," said he. "An avalanche has fallen down into the valley."
"And the humming?"
"That I suppose to have been your own snoring."
"But I did not sleep," said Ekkehard.
So they went down with him and listened. It was like a distant moaning coming up from the snow.
"If Pater Lucius of Quaradaves were still living," said Benedicta, "I should believe it to be him; as he had such a soft bear-like voice."
"Hush, thou wild bumble-bee!" cried her father. Then, they went to fetch shovels and Alpine sticks, the old man likewise taking his hatchet, and accompanied by Ekkehard, they followed the traces of the avalanche. It had fallen down from the Aesher, over earth and rock; breaking the low fir-trees like straw. Three mighty tors, looking down into the valley like sentinels, stopped the fall. There, the snow had angrily heaped itself up, only a small part had fallen over. The chief bulk, broken to pieces by the violence of the encounter, lay about in fantastic masses. The herdsman stooped down, to place his ear on the snow; then he advanced a few paces, and thrusting his mountain-stick in, he cried: "here we must dig!"