White Motley: A Novel

by Max Pemberton

They passed on by the seventh refuge, and set out across the dreary tableland, beyond which lay the village of Simplon itself. They had out-distanced other travellers, and were alone upon this waste, which breaks into the hills as an oasis whose icy mirage mocks the wayfarer. Here, for the first time, they perceived the effects of last night's storm: the profound drifts; the scarred rocks—even relics of the pilgrims who had dared the journey. A little farther on, and they entered the village, and heard the warning that the road to the Hospice was unsafe. No sleighs would be allowed to pass: there had been accidents upon the road, and the snow was not yet cleared. Some hours must intervene before permission could be given, they said, but Benny heard them with scorn, for he was determined to make the Hospice, and to hear the abbé's news, cost him what it might. When he had talked a little way with one of the soldiers at the inn, it appeared that nothing would be said to those who cared to set out on foot, and this he did immediately, instructing Bajazet to follow him directly the road was open that they might continue the journey to Brigue.

To Brigue—was that his destination? Lily, he remembered, should be at Sierre; it was even possible that her husband had joined her there, and that they would leave for England by the express to-night. He himself would follow after, but not for many weeks. The triumphs which awaited him in England had ceased to interest him. He had lost, as it were, in an hour the ambitions which had sustained him through the years, and the inspiration by which they had been gratified. It would be well enough to think of his future when all this were over, and he knew the best or the worst of it. The brain refusing to contemplate any other issue, it brought him back to the starting-point: would he be in time to save Delayne, or was the gendarme, Philip, already avenged?

He pressed on over a barren road which has been likened to a waterless lake in the hollow of the mountains. The snow lay heavy and the walking was difficult. By here and there he passed wayfarers coming down from the Hospice, but telling ever the same story of hardship and distress. When, at length, he espied the monastery buildings, it was at a moment when an avalanche crashed down on the road before him, and its thunders echoed in the heights with the booming of a thousand cannon. Such appalling sounds affrighted him beyond all reason, for he knew little of Switzerland in the winter, save what Andana had taught him. Grimly and with satisfaction, he remembered how little all this terror of the hills had meant to him last night, and how little it would mean to the men of to-morrow. Give him his ship, and he would be but a speck above these imprisoning peaks—as free as an eagle, and as kingly. To go as he must go—battling with the snow and often almost conquered by it, was a humiliation his genius derided. But it was in keeping with the truth of the quest; and presently, when a second avalanche thundered down, and the snow sprayed above a gallery as foam upon a seashore, he shuddered at its reality and wondered if his courage were equal to the ordeal.

He was but a quarter of a mile from the gate of the Hospice by this time, and he perceived that those who had gone before him here deserted the pass itself and went downward a little way toward the abyss. So many feet had trodden out a path that prudence bade him take it. Striking out boldly, he found himself presently in a magic sea whose billows rose above his head but never engulfed him. At this time the monastery disappeared from his view entirely; the landmarks by which he might have guided himself to its doors vanished to give place to this monstrous and unbroken curtain of the snow. He had the sense of being lost beyond hope, of being a man adrift upon an ocean whose waters were white with an icy foam. All idea of direction was blotted out immediately in this blinding waste. He found the path and lost it ten times in as many minutes, and then fell to bitter self-reproach because he had deserted the high road. Vain lament—that desertion was his salvation!

A great dog came battling through the snow, and, anon, a monk with a cassock tucked up to his waist, and skis upon his feet. He was quite a youth, and he laughed and nodded to the stranger as one who would say: "All is well; we knew you were coming to us." At his direction Benny turned up the hillside again, and there he found the rope by which travellers pull themselves up to the gates of the Hospice. They were now but fifty yards from its door, and he could hear a bell calling the priests to terce. The monk, in his turn, pointed to the high road, and to the mountains of snow which rested upon its galleries.

"You were wise to come as you did," he said. "Many lose their lives up there; three have done so this week, Monsieur."

No answer was made, and they entered the monastery. The bell still tolled, and the brethren were crossing the court toward the chapel. The Englishman, however, was conducted immediately to the guest hall, where a great fire blazed and a table was spread. The monk had already told him that the Abbé Villari was at the Hospice, and the desire to see him brooked no control. Benny had almost forgotten where he was; the events of the night and the journey of the day were as nothing when the abbé at last entered the room and greeted him with hand uplifted and a hushed word upon his lips.

"Yes, yes, I had expected you," he said, nodding his head slowly while he spoke. "It was natural that you should not have heard. We found him lying just above the seventh shelter. He was quite dead; he had been dead for some hours."

Benny drew a step nearer, as though afraid of the sound of his voice.

"You found him—are you speaking of Luton Delayne?"