CHAPTER XLII

"O MY mother!" she cried, "open thine arms to receive me! O Anzoleto, I love thee! O my God, receive my soul into a better world!"

Hardly had she uttered this cry of agony to Heaven, when she tripped and stumbled over some object in her path. O surprise! O divine goodness! It is a steep and narrow staircase, opening from one of the walls of the gallery, and up which she rushes on the wings of fear and of hope! The vault rises before her—the torrent dashes forward—strikes the staircase which Consuelo has had just time to clear—engulfs the first ten steps—wets to the ankle the agile feet which fly before it, and filling at last to the vaulted roof the gallery which Consuelo has left behind her, is swallowed up in the darkness, and falls with a horrible din into a deep reservoir, which the horoic girl looks down upon from a little platform she has reached on her knees and in darkness.

Her candle has been extinguished. A violent gust of wind had preceded the irruption of the mass of waters. Consuelo fell prostrate upon the last step, sustained hitherto by the instinct of self-preservation, but ignorant if she was saved—if the din of this cataract was not a new disaster which was about to overtake her—if the cold spray which dashed up even to where she was kneeling, and bathed her hair, was not the chilling hand of death extended to seize her.

In the meantime, the reservoir is filled by degrees to the height of other deeper waste ways, which carry still further in the bowels of the earth the current of the abundant spring. The noise diminishes, the vapors are dissipated, and a hollow and harmonious murmur echoes through the caverns. With a trembling hand Consuelo succeeds in relighting her candle. Her heart still beats violently against her bosom, but her courage is restored, and throwing herself on her knees she thanks God. Lastly, she examines the place in which she is, and throws the trembling light of her lantern upon the surrounding objects. A vast cavern, hollowed by the hand of nature, is extended like a roof over an abyss into which the distant fountain of the Schreckenstein flows, and loses itself in the recesses of the mountain. This abyss is so deep that the water which dashes into it cannot be seen at the bottom; but when a stone is thrown in, it is heard falling for a space of two minutes with a noise resembling thunder. The echoes of the cavern repeat it for a long time, and the hollow and frightful dash of the water is heard still longer, and might be taken for the howlings of the infernal pack. At one side of this cavern a narrow and dangerous path, hollowed out of the rock, runs along the margin of the precipice, and is lost in another gallery where the labor of man ceases, and which takes an upward direction and leaves the course of the current.

This is the road which Consuelo must take. There is no other—the water has closed and entirely filled that by which she came. It is impossible to await Zdenko's return in the grotto; its dampness would be fatal, and already the flame of her candle grows pale, flickers, and threatens to expire, without the possibility of being relighted.

Consuelo is not paralyzed by the horror of her situation. She thinks indeed that she is no longer on the road to the Schreckenstein, but that these subterranean galleries which open before her are a freak of nature, and conduct to places which are impassable, or to some labyrinth whence there is no issue. Still she will venture, were it only to seek a safer asylum until the next night. The next night, Zdenko will return and stop the current, the gallery will be again emptied, and the captive can retrace her steps and once more behold the blue vault of heaven.

Consuelo therefore plunged into the mysterious recesses of the cavern with fresh courage, attentive this time to all the peculiarities of the soil, and always careful to follow the ascending paths, without allowing her course to be diverted by the different galleries, apparently more spacious and more direct, which presented themselves every moment. By this means she was sure of not again meeting any currents of water, and of being able to retrace her steps.

She continued to advance in the midst of a thousand obstacles. Enormous stones blocked up her path; gigantic bats, awakened from their slumbers by the light of the lantern, came striking against it in squadrons, and whirling around the traveler like spirits of darkness. After the first emotions of surprise were over, she felt her courage increase at each fresh danger. Sometimes she climbed over immense blocks of stone which had been detached from the huge vault overhead, where other enormous masses hung from the cracked and disjointed roof, as if every moment about to fall and overwhelm her. At other times the vault became so low and narrow that Consuelo was obliged to creep on her hands and knees amid a close and heated atmosphere, in order to force a passage. She proceeded thus for half an hour, when on turning a sharp angle which her light and agile form could hardly pass, she fell from Charybdis into Scylla, on finding herself face to face with Zdenko—Zdenko, at first petrified by surprise and frozen by terror, but soon indignant, furious, and menacing, as she had previously seen him.

In this labyrinth, surrounded by such numberless obstacles, and aided only by a light which the want of air threatened to stifle every moment, Consuelo felt that flight was impossible. For a moment she had the idea of defending herself hand to hand against his murderous attempts; for Zdenko's wandering eyes and foaming mouth sufficiently announced that this time he would not confine himself to threats. Suddenly he took a strange and ferocious resolution, and began to gather huge stones and build them one upon the other between himself and Consuelo, in order to wall up the narrow gallery in which she was. In this way he was certain, by not emptying the cistern for several days, to cause her to perish with hunger, like the bee which incloses the incautious hornet in his cell by stopping up the mouth with wax.

But it was not with wax, but with granite, that Zdenko built, and he carried on his work with astonishing rapidity. The amazing strength which this man, although emaciated and apparently so weak, displayed in collecting and arranging the blocks, proved to Consuelo that all resistance would be vain, and that it was better to trust to finding another exit by retracing her steps, than to drive him to extremity by irritating him. She used her utmost powers of entreaty and persuasion to endeavor to move him. "Zdenko," said she, "what are you doing there, foolish one? Albert will reproach you with my death. Albert expects and calls me. I am his friend, his consolation, his safety. In destroying me, you destroy your friend and your brother."

But Zdenko, fearing to be persuaded, and resolved to continue his work, commenced to sing in his own language a lively and animated air, still continuing to build his cyclopean wall with an active and powerful hand.

One stone only was wanting to complete the edifice. Consuelo, with a feeling of terror, saw him fix it in its place. "Never," thought she, "shall I be able to demolish this wall; I should require the hands of a giant." The wall was now finished, and immediately she saw Zdenko commence building another, behind the first. It was a quarry, a whole fortress, which he meant to heap up between her and Albert. He continued to sing, and seemed to take extreme pleasure in his work.

A fortunate idea at last occurred to Consuelo. She remembered the famous heretical formula she had requested Amelia to explain to her, and which had so shocked the chaplain. "Zdenko!" cried she in Bohemian, through one of the openings of the badly joined wall which already separated them; "Friend Zdenko, may he who has been wronged salute thee!"

Hardly had she pronounced these words, when they operated upon Zdenko like a charm: he let fall the enormous block which he held, uttered a deep sigh, and began to demolish his wall with even more promptitude than he had displayed in building it. Then reaching his hand to Consuelo, he assisted her in silence to surmount the scattered fragments, after which he looked at her with attention, sighed deeply, and giving her three keys tied together with a red ribbon, pointed out the path before her, and repeated, "May he who has been wronged Salute thee!"

"Will you not serve me as a guide?" said she. "Conduct me to your master." Zdenko shook his head. "I have no master," said he; "I had a friend, but you deprive me of him. Our destiny is accomplished. Go whither God directs you; as for me, I shall weep here till you return."

And seating himself upon the ruins, he buried his head in his hands, and would not utter another word. Consuelo did not stop long to console him. She feared the return of his fury, and profiting by this momentary respect, and certain at last of being on the route to the Schreckenstein, she hurried forward on her way. In her uncertain and perilous journey, Consuelo had not made much advance; for Zdenko, who had taken a much longer route, but one which was inaccessible to the water, had met her at the point of junction of the two subterranean passages, which made the circuit of the château, its vast outbuildings, and the hill on which it stood—one, by a well-arranged winding path, excavated in the rock by the hand of man—the other frightful, wild, and full of dangers. Consuelo did not in the least imagine that she was at that moment under the park, and yet she passed its gates and moat by a path which all the keys and all the precautions of the canoness could no longer close against her.

After having proceeded some distance on this new route, she almost resolved to turn back and renounce an enterprise which had already proved so difficult and almost fatal to her. Perhaps fresh obstacles awaited her. Zdenko's ill-will might be excited afresh. And if he should pursue and overtake her? If he should raise a second wall to prevent her return? Whereas, on the other hand, by abandoning her project, and asking him to clear the way to the cistern and empty it again that she might ascend, she had every chance of finding him gentle and benevolent. But she was still too much under the influence of her recent emotion, to think of once more facing that fantastic being. The terror he had caused her increased in proportion to the distance which separated them, and after having escaped his vengeance by almost miraculous presence of mind, she felt herself utterly overcome on thinking of it. She therefore continued her flight, having no longer the courage to attempt what might be necessary to render him favorable, and only wishing to find one of those magic doors, the keys of which he had given her, in order to place a barrier between herself and the possible return of his fury.

But might she not find Albert—that other madman whom she rashly persisted in thinking kind and tractable—actuated by feelings toward her similar to those which Zdenko had just manifested? There was a thick veil of doubt and uncertainty over all this adventure; and stripped it of the romantic attraction which had served as an inducement for her to undertake it. Consuelo asked herself if she was not the most crazy of the three, to have precipitated herself into this abyss of dangers and mysteries, without being sure of arriving at a favorable result.

Nevertheless, she followed the gallery, which was spacious, and admirably excavated by the athletic heroes of the middle ages. All the rocks were cut through by an elliptic arch of much character and regularity. The less compact portions, the chalky veins of the soil, and all those places where there was any danger of the roof falling in, were supported by finely worked arches of freestone, bound together by square keystones of granite. Consuelo did not stop to admire this immense work, executed with a solidity which promised to defy the lapse of many ages; neither did she ask herself how the present owners of the château could be ignorant of the existence of so important a construction.

She might have explained it by remembering, that all the historical documents of the family and estate had been destroyed more than a century before, at the epoch of the Reformation in Bohemia; but she no longer looked around her, and hardly bestowed a thought upon any thing except her own safety, satisfied with simply finding a level floor, an air which she could breathe, and a free space in which to move. She had still a long distance to traverse, although the direct route to the Schreckenstein was much shorter than the winding path through the mountain. She found the way very tedious, and no longer able to determine in what direction she was proceeding, she knew not if it led to the Schreckenstein, or to some more distant termination.

After walking for about a quarter of an hour, she found the vault gradually increase in height, and the work of the architect cease entirely. Nevertheless these vast quarries, and these majestic grottoes through which she passed, were still the work of man; but trenched upon by vegetation, and receiving the external air through numberless fissures, they had a less gloomy aspect than the galleries, and contained a thousand hiding-places and means of escape from the pursuit of an irritated adversary. But a noise of running water, which was now heard, made Consuelo shudder; and if she had been able to jest in such a situation, she might have confessed to herself that Baron Frederick on his return from the chase had never expressed a greater horror of water than she experienced at that instant.

But reflection soon reassured her. Ever since she had left the precipice where she had been so nearly overwhelmed with the rush of water, she had continued to ascend, and unless Zdenko had at his command a hydraulic machine of inconceivable power and extent, he could not raise to that height his terrible auxiliary, the torrent. Besides, it was evident that she must somewhere encounter the current of the fountain, the sluice, or the spring itself, and if she had reflected further, she would have been astonished that she had not yet found in her path this mysterious source, this Fountain of Tears which supplied the cistern. The fact was, that the spring pursued its way through unknown regions of the mountain, and that the gallery, cutting it at right angles, did not encounter it except just near the cistern, and afterward under the Schreckenstein, as happened to Consuelo. The sluice-gate was far behind her, on the path which Zdenko had passed alone, and Consuelo approached the spring, which for ages had been seen by no one except Albert and Zdenko. In a short time she met with the current, and this time she walked along its bank without fear and without danger.

A path of smooth fresh sand bordered the course of the limpid and transparent stream, which ran with a pleasant murmur between carefully formed banks. There the handiwork of man once more reappeared. The path sloped down to the margin of the rivulet, and wound its way through beautiful aquatic plants, enormous wallflowers, and wild brambles, which flourished in this sheltered place without injury from the rigor of the season. Enough of the external air penetrated through cracks and crevices to support the vegetation, but these crevices were too narrow to afford passage to the curious eye which sought to pry into them from without. It was like a natural hot-house, preserved by its vaults from cold and snow, but sufficiently aired by a thousand imperceptible breathing-holes. It seemed as if some careful and discriminating hand had protected the lives of those beautiful plants, and freed the sand which the torrent threw upon its banks of any stones that could have hurt the feet, and this supposition would have been correct. It was Zdenko who had made the neighborhood of Albert's retreat so lovely, pleasant and secure.

Consuelo already began to feel the grateful influence which the less gloomy and poetic aspect of external objects produced upon her imagination. When she saw the pale rays of the moon glance here and there through the openings of the rocks, and reflect themselves upon the moving water; when she saw the motionless plants, which the water did not reach, agitated at intervals by the wind of the forest; when she perceived herself ascending nearer and nearer to the surface of the earth, she felt her strength renovated, and the reception which awaited her at the end of her heroic pilgrimage was depicted to her mind in less somber colors. At last she saw the path turn abruptly from the margin of the stream, enter a short gallery newly built, and terminate at a little door, which seemed of metal, it was so cold, and which was encircled, and as it were framed, by an enormous ground-ivy.

When she saw herself at the end of all her fatigues and uncertainty—when she rested her weary hand upon this last obstacle, which would yield to her touch in a moment (for she held the key of the door in her other hand)—Consuelo hesitated, and felt a timidity take possession of her, which was more difficult to conquer than all her terrors. She was about to penetrate alone into a place closed to every eye, to every human thought, and there to surprise, in sleep or reverie, a man whom she hardly knew; who was neither her father, nor her brother, nor her husband; who perhaps loved her, but whom she neither could love nor wished to love. "God has conducted me here," thought she, "through the most frightful dangers. It is by his will and by his protection that I have reached this spot. I come with a fervent mind, a resolution full of charity, a tranquil heart, a disinterestedness proof against every assault. Perhaps death awaits me, and yet the thought does not terrify me. My life is desolate, and I could lose it without much regret; I felt this an instant since, and for the last hour I have seen myself doomed to a frightful death, with a tranquillity for which I was not prepared. This is, perhaps, a favor which God sends to me in my last moments. Perhaps I am about to perish under the blows of a madman, and I advance to meet this catastrophe with the firmness of a martyr. I believe with ardent faith in an eternal life, and feel that if I perish here, victim to a friendship, perhaps useless, but at least conscientious, I shall be recompensed in a happier life. What delays me? and why do I experience an inexplicable dread, as if I were about to commit a fault, and to have to blush before him I have come to save?" Thus did Consuelo, too modest to understand her modesty, struggle with her feelings, and almost reproach herself for the delicacy of her scruples. Nevertheless she put the key into the lock of the door; but she tried to turn it ten times before she could resolve to do so. A sensation of overpowering lassitude took possession of her frame, and threatened to incapacitate her from proceeding with her enterprise, at the very moment when success seemed to crown her efforts.