The Adventure of Princess Sylvia. Williamson Alice Muriel
for herself and Miss M'Pherson; and to-day these acquisitions were being tested for the first time. Each bag stored an abundant luncheon for its bearer while on top, secured by straps passed across the shoulders, reposed a wrap to be used in rain or rest after violent exercise. Sylvia's rücksack grew heavy as she ascended, though at first its weight had seemed insignificant; and spying at a distance a green plateau on the mountainside, it occurred to her that it might be well to lighten the load and satisfy her appetite at the same time.
"That good M'Pherson is quite happy with Baedeker and won't be vexed if I am gone a little longer than I said," she assured herself. There was no gracious plateau at the top of the Weisshorn; only a sterile heap of rocks on which to stand for self-gratulation or incidentally to admire the view, and there was, besides, enough difficulty in reaching this lower point of vantage to make the venture attractive. The path zig-zagged up, a mere scratch on the face of the mountain; but the plateau, like a terrace laid out upon a buttress, could be gained only by scrambling over rough rocks and climbing in good earnest here and there. Beyond the visible strip of green, the natural terrace stretched away into mystery round the corner like the end of a picture in perspective.
Sylvia calculated the effort and decided that she was equal to it; but before she had gone halfway, she would gladly have stood once more on the path worn by the feet of less ambitious travellers. She even felt a certain sympathy with the sentiments Miss M'Pherson had expressed; yet there was nothing to do but go on. It would be worse to turn than to proceed. Her cheeks began to burn, and her heart to tap a warning against her side. How huge a giant was this mountain – towering above her, falling sheer away beneath her feet, down there where she did not care to look how – pitifully insignificant she!
But there was the plateau, bathed in sunshine like the Promised Land. And to her ears was wafted therefrom the sound of a man's voice, cheerily, melodiously jödelling.
"What if it should be he?" thought Sylvia. She had come all the way from England to meet him, and it was hard that he should jödel while she perished. Much good would it do her if her spirit beheld him bending over her crushed material remains.
Still the voice of the invisible one jödelled on.
"Help!" Sylvia added an impromptu to the chorus. "He may as well save me, be he emperor or tourist. Oh, I hope this isn't a lesson not to climb too high. Ought I to call for help in Rhaetian or English? I'll try both, to make quite sure."
She did try both, with the result that the jödelling suddenly stopped. Instead, an iron-shod boot rang against a rock. Forgetting fear in desire to know whether the actor now to appear for the first time on her life's stage would be hero or super, her foot slipped from its scanty hold. Stumbling, she slid from the rocky ledge down to the plateau, finally landing on her knees at the feet of a young man who strode hastily round the corner.
"Himmel!" exclaimed a voice, half laughing, half startled. She dared not look up, lest she should meet disappointment. Would it be he, sent to her by Destiny, or some tourist, sent by Cook?
One who knew Maximilian's habits well (the only one, besides her mother, wholly taken into confidence) had told her that to find him as a man, and not an emperor, she should make her pilgrimage to Heiligengelt in the chamois-hunting season. She had remembered this hint. She had come; was she now about to see?
Two brown hands were held out to help her. Slowly she raised her eyes. They travelled up and up. Beginning with a pair of big nailed boots, they glided over the knitted detail of woollen stockings, and were stopped for an instant at an unexpected obstacle in the shape of bare, muscular brown knees. (Thank goodness, at least Fate had spared her a tourist!) Short, shabby trousers; a gray coat, passemoiled with green, from one pocket of which protruded a great hunch of bread and ham, evidently just thrust in; broad shoulders; a throat like a column of bronze; a face – the blood leaped in Sylvia's veins and sang in her ears. It was he – it was he! Here was the eyrie: the eagle was at home.
All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of green felt, adorned with the beard of a chamois, was the face she had dreamed of by night and day. A dark, austere face, with more of Mars than Apollo in its lines, but to her worth all the ideals of all the sculptors in the world. He was dressed as a chamois-hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn costume to distinguish the wearer from the type he represented; but as easily might the eagle to whom she likened him try to pass for a barnyard fowl as this man for a peasant – so Sylvia thought.
She hoped that he did not feel the beating in her fingers-ends as he caught her hands, lifted and set her on her feet. There was humiliation in this tempest of her pulses, knowing that he did not share it. To her, this meeting was an epoch: to him, a trivial incident. She would have keyed his emotion to hers, if she could, but since she had had years of preparation, he a single moment, perhaps she might have rested satisfied with the expression in his eyes.
It said, had she been calm enough to read it: "Is heaven raining goddesses to-day?"
Now, what was she to say to him? How make the most of this wonderful chance that had come, to know the man and not the Emperor? Each word should be chosen, like a bit of mosaic that fits into a complicated pattern. She should marshal her sentences as a general marshals his battalions, with a plan of campaign for each one. A spirit-monitor (a match-making monitor) seemed to whisper these advices in her ear; yet she was powerless to heed them. Like a school girl about to be examined for a scholarship, knowing that all the future might depend upon a single hour, the need to be resourceful left her dumb. How many times had she not planned her first conversation with Maximilian, the first words she should speak to rivet his attention, to make him feel that she was subtly different from any woman he had ever known? But now, epigrams turned tail and raced away from her like playful colts refusing to be caught.
"I hope you are not hurt?" asked the chamois-hunter, in the patois dear to the mountain-folk of Rhaetia.
Here was a comfort; at least she was not to have the responsibility of playing the first card. Meekly she followed his lead.
"Only in the pride that comes before a fall," she answered, in the tongue she had delighted to learn, because it was her hero's. "There should be a sign between the path and this plateau: 'All save suicides should beware.'"
"We have never thought of the necessity, my mates and I," said the man in the gray coat passemoiled with green. "Until you came, gna' Fräulein, no tourist has cared to run the risk."
Sylvia's eyes lit suddenly with a sapphire spark. The spirit of mischief nipped her beating heart between rosy thumb and finger, daring her to a frolic – such a frolic as no girl on earth had ever had. And she would show this grave, austere, self-centred young hero a phase of life he had not seen before. Then, let come what would out of this adventure, at least she should have an Olympian episode to remember.
"Until I came?" She caught up the words, standing before him on the spot where he had placed her. "But I am no tourist; I am an explorer."
He raised level, dark eyebrows; and when he smiled half his austerity was gone. So beautiful a girl need be no more than commonplace of thought and speech; indeed, the hunter of chamois expected little else from women. Yet this one bade fair to have surprises in reserve. He had brought down marvellous game to-day, such as no hunter before him had ever found upon the mountain-side.
"I know the Weisshorn well," said he, "and love it; but I cannot see how it rewards the explorer unless you are a climber or a geologist."
"I am neither; but I came in search of something that I have wanted all my life to see," replied the girl.
His face confessed curiosity. "Might one ask the name of the rare thing? Perhaps one might help in the search."
"I feel sure," replied Sylvia graciously, "that you could help me, if you would, as well as any one on earth."
"That is good hearing, lady, though I know not yet how I have deserved the compliment. First I must hear what you seek, and then – "
"I seek a rare plant, that grows only in high, places. It is said to be found here at certain seasons; though I have never met any one who can boast of plucking it. I would that I could be the first."
"Is it the Edelweiss, gna' Fräulein. Because,