"And what of them?" asked Andreas, casting a tender glance on his wife and his son. "The route across the glaciers is impassable for a woman and a child."
"First save yourself, my Andy," exclaimed Anna Gertrude; "save yourself for us and the country. After you are gone and have arrived at a place of safety, the enemy will hardly trouble us any more, and I will follow you then with the children."
"You need not be anxious, so far as your wife and children are concerned," said Doeninger. "I will not leave them, but bring them to you."
"Pray do not hesitate, Andy," said Anthony Steeger, urgently. "The archduke implores you not to grieve him by rejecting his offer, but to relieve his conscience from the heavy debt which he has hitherto been unable to discharge to the Tyrol. You shall escape for his sake and for the good of the fatherland, and save your life for better times, which will surely dawn upon the Tyrol. Do it, Andreas. Let us go to work immediately. See, I have with me all that you need, and wear two suits of clothes; one is destined for you, and you will put it on. And here is the razor, with which we shall shave off your beard; and when it is gone, and you have put on the new clothes, no one will scent the Barbone in the man with a foreign dress and a smooth chin. Come, now, Andy, and do not hesitate."
"I am to make quite another man of myself," said Andreas, shaking his head, "merely to save my miserable life? I am to deny my dear Passeyr? I am to shave off my beard, which I have worn so long in an honorable manner, and by which everyone knows me throughout the Tyrol? No, Anthony Steeger, I will never do that!"
"If you do not, Andreas, you are lost," said Anthony Steeger. "I am afraid the French are already on your track. A peasant said he had seen you up here the other day."
"Yes, it was Raffel. He came up here to look for his cow, and met me here. But I gave him money not to betray my secret, and he promised me solemnly that be would not."
"He must have violated his pledge already, Andy; for he told Donay, the priest, about it, and the latter boasted publicly yesterday that he was aware of Andreas Hofer's place of concealment."
"It is true, Donay is a bad and mean man," said Andreas Hofer, musingly; "but I do not believe he will be so mean as to betray me, whom he always called his best commander-in-chief and dearest friend."
"He is mean enough to do it," murmured Doeninger. "The magnitude of the price set on your head will induce him to betray his benefactor."