'Yes, he lives; the Lord be praised! 'said Otto.
When he went to the house the boy told no one his precious secret. He studied ill, and was punished, but he did not heed it. His heart was full of joy; his brain teemed with projects.
'I will go and bring him back!' he kept saying to himself; and no force could hold his thoughts to his Homer or his Euclid.
He would tell no one, he resolved, not even Gela; and he would go alone, all alone, as the Bohemian boy had gone.
'What ails Bela to-day? He is not like himself,' said his mother to Greswold, who assured her he was well, but added that he was often careless.
The child shut his secret up in his own breast, and though he longed to tell Gela he did not. He had been tempted to confide in Otto, but resisted even that desire, knowing that Otto was stern where duty pointed, and had been always forbidden to let the little nobles wander alone to the mountains. He had his father's power of reticence, his mother's strength of self-control.
He knew what hill work was like. The elder boys often went climbing, with their guides, on fine days from May to September, and had a little tent which was set up for them at a fair altitude, whence Greswold taught them to take observations and measurements. But the mountaineering for the season was now over; it was now S. Michael's Day, and avalanches fell and snow-storms had begun on the higher slopes. He knew that if anyone saw him he would be stopped and taken back. For that reason he said nothing to Gela, who could never be persuaded to a disobedience; and he rose in the dark, before the hour at which his attendant came to dress him, got his clothes on as best he could, slipped the sword Vàsàrhely had given him in his belt, and took his crampons and alpenstock in his hand.
He had kneeled and said his prayers, fervently though quickly.
'A soldier cannot pray very long if he hear the trumpets sounding,' he had thought, as he rose. He felt neither irresolution nor fear; he was strong with ardour and an exalted sense of right-doing.
He had the little knapsack which, in the long forest walks with his tutor, he was used to carry packed with simple food for a morning meal when they halted under the pines. He had put some bread and cakes into this overnight, and he had filled his little silver flask with milk, as he had seen the flasks of the gentlemen filled with wine in those grand days when the Kaiser and the Court had hunted with his father. Thus equipped he managed to escape from the house by a side door, left open by some of the under-servants, who had just risen. He knew the quick way to reach the Glöckner slopes, for he had been taken there by Otto to learn mountaineering, and for his age he climbed well. His eye was sure, his step firm, and he knew not fear. He never thought of the misery his absence might cause; he was absorbed in his self-imposed mission.