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Page 38
Now I also descended the first steps of this newly-discovered staircase,
directing my course after this distant light; suddenly it vanished. The
old woman and the count had reached the bottom of the precipice.
Supported by the stone rail I continued my descent, safe to be able to
mount again if I found my further progress stopped.
Soon I came to the last step; I looked around me, and discovered on my
left hand a narrow streak of moonlight shining under a low door, through
the nettles and brambles; I kicked a way through these obstacles,
clearing the snow away with my feet, and then found that I was at the
very foot of the keep--Hugh's donjon tower.
Who would have supposed that such a hole would have led up into the
castle? Who had shown it to the old woman? I did not stay to satisfy
myself on these points.
The vast plain lay spread before me bathed in a light almost equal to
that of day. On the right lay extended wide the dark line of the Black
Forest with its craggy rocks, its gullies, its passes stretching away as
far as the sight could reach.
The night air was keen and sharp, but perfectly calm, and I felt myself
awakened to the highest degree, almost as if my senses were volatilised
by the still and ice-cold air.
My first examination of the horizon was for the figures of the count
and his strange companion. I soon distinguished their tall dark forms
standing out sharply against the star-spangled purple heavens. I nearly
overtook them at the bottom of the ravine.
The count was moving with deliberate steps, the imaginary winding-sheet
dragging slowly after him. There was an automatic precision in the
movements of both.
I kept six or eight yards behind them down the hollow road to the
Altenberg, now in the shade, now in the full light, for the moon was
shining with astonishing brilliancy. A few clouds floated idly across the
zenith, seeming to want to clasp her in their long arms, but she ever
eluded their grasp, and her rays, keen as a blade of steel, cut me to the
marrow of my bones.
I could have wished to turn back, but some invisible power impelled me
onwards to follow this funeral procession in pantomime. Even to this day
I fancy still I can see the rough mountain path through the Black Forest,
I can hear the crisp snow crackling under foot, and the dead leaves
rustling in the light north wind; I can see myself following those two
silent beings, but I cannot understand what mysterious power drew me in
their footsteps.
At last we reach the forest, and advance amongst the tall bare-branched,
beeches; the dark shadows of their higher boughs intersect the lower
branches, and fall broken upon the snow-encumbered road. Sometimes I
fancy I can hear steps behind me; I turn sharply round, but can see no
one.
We had just reached the long rocky ridge that forms the crest of the
Altenberg; behind it flows the torrent of the Schn�eberg, but in winter
no current is visible; scarcely does a mere thread of its blue waters
trickle under the thick crust of ice. Here the deep solitude is broken by
no murmuring brooks, no warblings of birds, no thunder of the waterfall.
In the vast unbroken solitudes the awful silence is terrible.
The Count of Nideck and the old woman found a gap in the face of the
rock, up which they mounted straight with marvellous celerity, whilst I
had to pull myself up by the help of the bushes.
Hardly had they reached the ridge of the crags, which came almost to a
point, when I was within three yards of them, and I beheld beyond a
dreadful precipice of which I could not see the bottom. At the left hung
in the air like a vast sheet the fall of the Schn�eberg, a mass of ice.
That resemblance to an immense wave taking the precipice at one bound,
bearing trees on its breast, fringed with the bushes, and winding out the
long ivy sprays, which exhibit in their delicate tracery the form of the
rigid glassy billow; that mere semblance of movement amidst the stillness
and immovableness of death, and the presence of those two speechless
creatures pursuing their ghastly work with automatic precision, added to
the terror with which I already trembled.
Nature herself seemed to shrink with horror.
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