"This is the place where we may rest," said Eliza, drawing a deep breath.
"And may I speak now, Eliza?" asked Ulrich.
"No," she said; "do you not see that God is speaking now?"
And she pointed to the part of the horizon which, radiant in its crimson lustre, lay at the end of the lovely valley opening before them. Gazing at it, Eliza sank noiselessly down on the fragment of a rock, and clasping her hands on her knees, she contemplated the glorious spectacle by which God speaks to man every morning.
The valley was still wrapped in the gloom of twilight, but behind the flat and gently-rounded mountains yonder rose the flaming glow of radiant crimson, and sent a few purple clouds as heralds of the approaching majesty into the azure sky. A rosy hue covered the glaciers of the Venediger and Gross-Glockner, which looked down in proud majesty on the mountains bordering the valley, and which had hitherto wrapped their summits in veils of glistening silver. On beholding the divine majesty of the sun, they dropped their veils, their summits crimsoned and loomed up to the sky in dazzling splendor. The rays gilding them shed a lustre on the lower wooded mountains, greeted the spires of the churches rising amidst the villages, dissipated the mist which had hitherto filled the valley, and converted the waters of the foaming Isel, meandering through the valley, into liquid gold. The gloom entirely disappeared, and the whole landscape was radiant in its morning beauty. God had willed that there should be light, and the earth lay smiling and surpassingly beautiful under the first glowing rays of the sun.
Eliza gazed with a rapt smile upon the sublime scene; the clouds had disappeared from her brow also, and the gloom had vanished from her eyes.
"Oh, how beautiful is the world! how beautiful is my dear Tyrol!" she exclaimed, fervently. "I greet you, beloved mountains guarding our frontiers! I greet you, Gross-Glockner and Venediger! Yes, gaze upon the Tyrol, for now you may rejoice over it! The enemy is no longer in the country, and I am bringing you the last Bavarian who is still here, that you may send him across the border. Sir," she added, turning her face, illuminated by the sun, slowly to the young man, who had not contemplated the sun, but only her face, "we must part here. I only intended to conduct you hither, to the Kalser Thoerl. You will now descend to the village of Kals, which you see in the valley yonder. Look, back there, its red roofs are rising out of the green shrubbery. You will go to the inn there, and give this letter to Lebrecht Panzl, the innkeeper. He is my mother's brother, and she writes him in this letter to give you a reliable guide, who is to conduct you over the Pruschler Thoerl and the Katzenstein to Heiligenblut. You will reach Heiligenblut in seven hours. Its inhabitants speak Bavarian German; your Bavarian dialect will not be suspicious to them, and you will easily find there a guide to conduct you wherever you wish to go. You will find some food for to- day in the haversack here, and also some money, and powder and lead. Take it, sir; here is the rifle, and here the haversack. Unless you have them with you, no one will take you for a genuine Tyrolese. There. Put your clothes into the sack, you can carry them better that way; hang the rifle round your shoulder, and then adieu?"
"And you think, Eliza, I can accept all this kindness and magnanimity?" cried Ulrich, vehemently; "you think I can accept at your hands food, money—nay, more, my life, my honor, and leave you with a cold 'thank you,' after denying and insulting you in the despair of my wounded military honor? No, Eliza, you have mistaken my character. I will not go, I will not leave you. I followed you here to see how far your magnanimity and noble self-abnegation would go; but now I shall return with you to Windisch-Matrey. Your father invited to the wedding the men who wished to kill me yesterday; they will await us at the church at nine this morning, and they shall not wait in vain. Come, Eliza, let us return to Windisch-Matrey; for all your kindness and magnanimity I shall give you the only thing I have to give, my name. You will, you shall become my wife! Come, your father and your friends await us at the church; I will conduct you thither and to the altar."
"I will not do it," she exclaimed proudly; "for, as sure as there is a God in heaven, I should say 'no' before the altar, and reject your hand."
"Well, then, do that," he said, gently; "I have deserved this humiliation; I owe you an opportunity to wreak your vengeance on me."