“Oh, my God!” burst from Cyril. “Death now!” The prospect with which he had been contented the moment before seemed all at once to have become terrible beyond expression. Was this new life—this triumphant love—to end thus? With gloomy eyes he watched the flames creeping along the floor, seizing on the odds and ends of rubbish that lay about, coming closer and closer. The wooden walls were on fire as well; but he and Ernestine stood in the partial shelter of the stone tower. Still, the floor was of wood even here. The flames must soon spread to it; it would give way, and they would be precipitated into the abyss of flame beneath. He turned shuddering from the thought, and looking at Ernestine, saw that her lips were moving.
“Are you praying, dearest?” he asked her.
“No; I was thanking God,” she answered simply; and Cyril, raging against his fate and hers, felt almost angry with her for being able to give thanks at such a moment. Suddenly he bent down, and, with a horrified exclamation, crushed out a tongue of flame which had run along the floor and caught her dress. She crept closer to him, and raised her eyes to his.
“Kiss me once more, dear,” she said. “It cannot be long now.”
Their lips were meeting just as a loud knocking upon the shutter from without startled them. Disengaging himself from Ernestine’s arms, Cyril sprang to the window and threw it open. Below in the water stood old Giorgei, much excited, and belabouring the shutter vigorously with his staff.
“Thank the saints you are there still!” he shouted breathlessly. “I was afraid I was too late. That’s right; lower the lady gently,” for Cyril had not lost an instant in lifting the Queen to the sill, and was now helping her to let herself down on the outside. “Don’t be afraid, lady; I am here to catch you. That’s bravely done! Now just round the corner. Shut your eyes if you are afraid of the water. Now, what is it you want to say? Go back quickly and save him, do you mean? Why, of course. You stand there, and I’ll bring him to you in a trice.”
Cyril was not a moment too soon in lowering himself out of the window, for the flames and smoke, encouraged by the draught, poured out after him, and caught the shutter even before he had turned the corner. The Queen was standing knee-deep in the swirling water, clinging to an iron ring fixed into the wall, and Giorgei nodded at her approvingly.
“That’s right; you have some sense, I see, but you’ll need it all in a minute.” It did not seem to strike him that she could not understand his exhortations. “Cover up your eyes if you are frightened; but don’t stand still for a second. That was what kept me so long. The other lady, she got frightened in the middle, and stood holding on to a rock and shaking. She wouldn’t move one way or the other, and at last I had to take the child on first and come back for her, and even then I couldn’t get her to stir for a long time. It was only when I told her she would be the death of you both if she stuck there that she let go of the rock, and then she was too terrified to walk. I had to carry her across in my arms, after all, and she is not so light as she was once, either.”
“Shall I blindfold you, dear?” said Cyril to Ernestine in English.
“No; I am not frightened with you,” she answered, looking at him with a rapt expression in her eyes. He doubted whether she was even aware that she was standing in the water, and yet the means of transit which the old man now pointed out was such as to put every faculty on the alert. In front of them, at the top of the fall, the river made its longest leap, twenty feet or so without a break, and dashed clear of the rocks, leaving an empty space under a curtain of water. Here a precarious path had been formed, partly by nature, but chiefly, no doubt, by the hand of man; and it was possible to cross the cascade, as St Gabriel had done in his day, beneath the water and not on its surface. No wonder poor Fräulein von Staubach was frightened! thought Cyril. But he had little time for reflection. Fastening about his own waist the end of the rope which was round that of the Queen, the old man led the way, and in a moment the fugitives found themselves in a cavern of which the roof was formed of falling water, and where the air was filled with sound, and the temperature icy cold. The rocks were damp with constantly oozing moisture, and the greatest care was needed to prevent a slip; but the Queen never made a false step. She seemed to know by instinct where to place her feet, and obeyed any order without the slightest hesitation, and the perilous passage was accomplished in perfect safety. Fräulein von Staubach and the little King, watching anxiously among the rocks on the farther shore, flew to greet her, while Cyril wondered secretly whether his hair had not turned grey during the last hour. He looked round to speak to Giorgei; but the old man had disappeared, and looking back in astonishment into the water-tunnel, Cyril caught sight of him vanishing round a projecting rock. It was evident that he had departed to avoid being thanked; and as even gratitude itself could not face the terrors of the passage again for the sake of tracking him, the fugitives were obliged to respect his wishes.