The Silent Shore

CHAPTER XX

The Schwarzweiss Pass, leading from the south-east of Switzerland to Italy, is one well known to mountaineers, because of the rapid manner in which they can cross from one country to another, and also because of the magnificent views that it presents to the traveller. Moreover, it offers to them a choice either of making a passage over the snow-clad mountains that rise above it, and across the great Schwarzweiss glacier, or of keeping to the path that, while rising to the height at some places of 10,000 feet, is, except at the summit, perfectly passable in good weather. It is true that he who, even while on the path, should turn giddy, or walk carelessly, would risk his life, for though above him only are the vast white "horns" and "Piz," below him there are still the ravines through which run the boiling torrents known respectively as the "Schwarz" and the "Weiss" rivers-rivers that carry with them huge boulder stones and pine-trees wrenched from their roots; dry slopes that fall hundreds of feet down into the valley below; and also the Klein (or little) Schwarzweiss glacier, a name so given it, not because of its smallness-for it is two miles long, and in one place, half-a-mile across-but to distinguish it from the Gross-Schwarzweiss glacier that hangs above on the other side of the pass.

It is a lonely and grim road, a road in which no bird is heard or seen from the time that the village of St. Christoph is left behind on the Swiss side until the village of Santa Madre is reached on the Italian side; a road that winds at first, and at last, through fir-woods and pine-trees, but that in the middle is nothing but a path, cut in some parts and blasted in others, along the granite sides of the rocks, and hanging in many places above the valley far below. Patches of snow and pieces of rock that have fallen from above, alone relieve the view on the side of the path; on the opposite side of the ravine is nothing but a huge wall of granite that holds no snow, so slippery is it; but above which hangs, white and gray, like the face of a corpse, the glacier from which the pass derives its name.

A lonely and grim road even in the daytime, when a few rays of sunshine manage to penetrate it at midday, when occasionally a party of tourists may be met with, and when sometimes the voice of a goatherd calling his flocks rises from the valley below; but lonelier and more grim, and more black and impenetrable at night, and rarely or ever then trod by human foot. For he who should attempt the passage of the Schwarzweiss Pass at night, unless there were a brilliant moon to light him through its most dangerous parts, would take his life in his own hands.

Yet, on an August night of the year in which this tale is told, and when there was a moon that, being near its full, consequently rose late and shone till nearly daylight, a man was making his way across this pass to Italy.

Midnight was close at hand as, with weary steps, he descended a rough-hewn path in the rock-a path which, for safety, had a rude handrail of iron attached to the side from which it was cut-and reached a small plateau, the size, perhaps, of an ordinary room, and from which again the path went on. From this plateau shelved down, for a hundred feet or more, an almost perpendicular moraine, or glacier bed, and at the foot of this lay the Klein-Schwarzweiss, with its crevasses glistening in the moonlight; for the moon had topped even the great mountains above by now, and lighted up the pass. It was evidently considered a dangerous part of the route, since between the edge of the plateau and the side of the moraine a wooden railing had been erected, consisting of two short upright posts and a long cross one. As the man reached this plateau, holding to the rail with one hand, while with the other he used his alpenstock as a walking-stick, he perceived a stone-it may have been placed there for the purpose-large enough for a seat; and taking off his knapsack wearily, he sat down upon it.

"Time presses," he muttered to himself, "yet I must rest. Otherwise I shall not be at Santa Madre by eight o'clock to-morrow. I can go no farther without a rest."

There is an indefinite feeling of awfulness in being alone at night amongst the mountains, in knowing and feeling that for miles around there is no other creature in these vast, cold solitudes but ourselves: and this man had that feeling now.

"How still-how awful this pass is!" he said to himself, "with no sound but the creaking of that glacier below-with no human being here but me. Yet, I should be glad I am alone."

At this moment a few stones in the moraine slipped and fell into the glacier, and the man started at the distinct sound they made in that wilderness of silence. Then, as he sat there gazing up at the moon and the snow above him, he continued his meditations.

"It is best," he thought, "that the poor old mother did not know when I said 'good-bye' to her this afternoon, and she bade me come back soon, that I should never come back, that I had a farther destination than Italy before me; best that my father did not know that we should never meet again. Never! never! Ah, God! it is a long word."

"Yet it must be done," he went on. "If I want to drag this miserable life out, I must do it elsewhere than in England. That sleuth-hound will surely find me there; it is possible that he will even track me to the antipodes. Yet, if I were sure that he is lying about-having seen my face before, I would go back and brave him. Where did he ever see it? – where? – where? To my knowledge I have never seen him."

He rose and walked to the railing above the moraine, and looked down at the glacier, and listened to the cracking made by the seracs. "I might make an end of it now," he thought. "If I threw myself down there, it would be looked upon as an ordinary Alpine accident. But, no! that is the coward's resource. I have blasted my life for ever by one foul deed; let me endure it as a reparation for my crime. But what is my future to be? Am I to live a miserable existence for years in some distant country, frightened at every strange face, dreading to read every newspaper that reaches me for fear that I shall see myself denounced in it, and never knowing a moment's peace or tranquillity? Ah, Gervase! I wonder what you would say if you knew that, for your sake, I have sacrificed every hope of happiness in this world and all my chances of salvation in the next." He went back to the big stone after uttering these thoughts and sat down wearily upon it. "If I could know that that Spaniard was baffled at last and had lost all track of me, I could make my arrangements more calmly for leaving Europe, might even look forward to returning to England some day, and spending my life there while expiating my crime. But, while I know nothing, I must go on and on till at last I reach some place where I may feel safe."

He looked at his watch as he spoke to himself, and saw that the night was passing. "Another five minutes' rest," he said, "and I will start again across the pass."

As he sat there, taking those last five minutes of rest, it seemed to him that there was some other slight sound breaking the stillness of the night, something else besides the occasional cracking noise made by the glacier below and the subdued roar of the torrents in the valley. A light, regular sound, that nowhere else but in a solitude like this would, perhaps, be heard, but that here was perfectly distinct. It came nearer and nearer, and once, as it approached, some small stones were dislodged and rattled down from above, and fell with a plunge on to the glacier below: and then, as it came closer, he knew that it was made by the footsteps of a man. And, looking up, he saw a human figure descending the path to the plateau by which he had come, and standing out clearly defined against the moonlight.

"It is some guide going home," he said to himself, "or starting out upon an early ascent. How firmly he descends the path."

The man advanced, and he watched him curiously, noticing the easy way in which he came down the rough-hewn steps, scarcely touching the handrail or using the heavy-pointed stick he carried in place of the usual alpenstock. And he noticed that, besides his knapsack, he carried the heavy coil of rope that guides use in their ascents.

At last the new comer reached the plateau, and, as he took the last two or three steps that led on to it, he saw that there was another man upon it, and stopped. Stopped to gaze for one moment at the previous occupant, and then to advance towards him and to stand towering above him as he sat upon the boulder-stone.

"You are Philip Smerdon," he said in a voice that sounded deep and hollow in the other's ear.

Utterly astonished, and with another feeling that was not all astonishment, Smerdon rose and stood before him and said:

"I do not know of what importance my name can be to you."

"Your name is of no importance, but you are of the greatest to me. When I tell you my name you will understand why. It is Miguel Guffanta."

"Guffanta!" Smerdon exclaimed, "Guffanta!"

"Yes! the friend of Walter Cundall."

"What do you want with me?" the other asked, but as he asked he knew the answer that would come from the man before him.

"But one thing now, though ten minutes ago I wanted more. I wanted to see, then, if the man whom I sought for in London and at Occleve Chase, whom I have followed from place to place till I have found him here, was the same man I saw stab my friend to death in-"

"You saw it?"

"Yes, I saw it. And you are the man who did it!"

"It is false!"

"It is true! Do you dare to tell me I lie, you, a- Bah! Why should I cross words with a murderer-a thief!"

"I am no thief!" Smerdon said, his anger rising at this opprobrious term, even as he felt his guilt proclaimed.

"You are! You stole his watch and money because you thought to make his murder appear a common one. And so it was! You slew him because you feared he would dispossess your master of what he unrighteously held, because you thought that you would lose your place."

"Again I say it is false! I had no thought of self! I killed him-yes, I! – because I loved my friend, my master as you term him, because he threatened to come between him and the woman he loved. Had I known of Walter Cundall's noble nature, as I knew of it afterwards, no power on earth could have induced me to do such a deed."

"It is infamy for such as you to speak of his nobility-but enough! Are you armed to-night, as you were on that night?"

"I have no arms about me. Why do you ask?"

"To tell you that no arms can avail you now. You must come with me."

"To where?"

"To the village prison at St. Christoph. There I will leave you until you can be taken to England."

For the first time since he had seen the avenger of Walter Cundall standing before him, Smerdon smiled bitterly.

"Señor Guffanta," he said, "you are very big and strong-it may well be stronger than I am. But you overrate your strength strangely if you think that any power you possess can make me go with you. I am a murderer-God help and pardon me! It is probable I shall be a double one before this night is over."

"You threaten me-you! You defy me!" Guffanta exclaimed, while his dark eyes gleamed ominously.

"Yes, I defy you! If my sin is to be punished, it shall not be by you, at least. Here, in this lonely place where for miles no other human creature is near, I defy you to do your worst. We are man to man; do you think I fear you?"

In a moment Guffanta had sprung at him, had seized him by the throat, and with the other arm had encircled his body.

"So be it," he hissed in Smerdon's ear, "it suits me better than a prolonged punishment of your crime would do."

For a moment they struggled locked together, and in that moment Smerdon knew that he was doomed; that he was about to expiate his crime. The long, sinewy hand of the Spaniard that was round his throat was choking him; his own blows fell upon the other's body harmlessly. And he was being dragged towards the edge of the moraine, already his back was against the wooden railing that alone stood between the plateau and destruction. He could, even at this moment, hear it creaking with his weight; it would break in another instant!

"Will you yield, assassin, villain?" Guffanta muttered.

"Never! Do your worst."

He felt one hand tighten round his throat more strongly, he felt the other arm of the Spaniard driving him back; in that moment of supreme agony he heard the breaking of the railing and felt it give under him, and then Guffanta's hands had loosed him, and, striking the moraine with his head, he fell down and down till he lay a senseless mass upon the white bosom of the glacier.

And Guffanta standing above, with his head bared to the stars and to the waning moon, exclaimed, as he lifted his hand to the heavens, "Walter, you are avenged."

The day dawned upon the plateau; a few struggling rays of the sun illuminated the great glacier above and turned its dead gray snow and ice into a pure, warm white, while the mists rolled away from the high mountains keeping watch above; and below on the smaller glacier, and at the edge of a yawning crevasse, lay the body of Philip Smerdon.

Two guides, proceeding over the pass to meet a party of mountain climbers, reached the plateau at dawn, and sitting down upon the stone to eat a piece of bread and take a draught of cold coffee, saw his knapsack lying beside it.

"What does it mean?" the one said to the other.

"It means death," his companion replied, "the railing is broken! Some one has fallen."

Slowly and carefully, and each holding to one of the upright posts, they peered over and down on to the glacier, and there they saw what was lying below. A whispered word sufficed, a direction given by one to the other, and these hardy mountaineers were descending the moraine, digging their sticks deeply into the stones, and gradually working their way skilfully to the glacier.

"Is he dead, Carl?" the one asked of his friend, who stooped over the prostrate form and felt his heart.

"No; he lives. Mein Gott! how has he ever fallen here without instant death? But he must die! See, his bones are all broken!" and as he spoke he lifted Smerdon's arm and touched one of his legs.

"What shall we do with him?" the other asked.

"We must remove him. Even though he die on the way, it is better than to leave him here. Let us take him to the house of Father Neümann. It is but to the foot of the glacier."

Very gently these men lifted him in their arms, though not so gently but that they wrung a groan of agony from him as they did so, and bore him down the glacier to where it entered the valley; and then, having handed him to the priest, who lived in what was little better than a hut, they left him.

Late that afternoon the dying man opened his eyes, and looked round the room in which he lay. At his bedside he saw a table with a Cross laid upon it, and at the window of the room an aged priest sat reading a Breviary. "Where am I?" he asked in English.

The priest rose and came to the bed, and then spoke to him in German. "My son," he said, "what want of yours can I supply?"

"Tell me where I am," Smerdon answered in the same language, "and how long I have to live."

"You are in my house, the house of the Curé of Sastratz. For the span of your life none can answer but God. But, my son, I should do ill if I did not tell you that your hours are numbered. The doctor from St. Christoph has seen you."

"Give me paper and ink-"

"My son, you cannot write, and-"

"I will write," Smerdon said faintly, "even though I die in the attempt."

The Curé felt his right arm, which was not broken like the other, and then he brought him paper and ink, and holding the former up on his Breviary before the dying man, he put the pen in his hand. And slowly and painfully, and with eyes that occasionally closed, Smerdon wrote:

"I am dying at the house of the Curé of Sastratz, near the Schwarzweiss Pass; from a fall. Tell Gervase that I alone murdered Walter Crandall. If he will come to me and I am still alive, I will tell him all.

Then he put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to Ida Raughton. And ere he once more lapsed into unconsciousness, he asked the priest to write another for him to his mother, and to address it to an hotel at Zurich.

"They will be sent at once?" he asked faintly.

"Surely, my son."

CHAPTER XXI

It was late on the evening of the fifth day after the letter had been sent to Ida Raughton, that a mule, bearing upon its back Lord Penlyn and escorted by a guide, stopped at the house of the Curé of Sastratz; The young man had travelled from London as fast as the expresses could carry him, and had come straight to the village lying at the entrance of the Schwarzweiss Pass, to find that from there he could only continue his journey on foot or by mule. He chose the latter as the swiftest and easiest course-for he was very tired and worn with travelling-and at last he arrived at his destination.

When the first feeling of horror had been upon him on reading the letter Smerdon had written, acknowledging that he was the murderer, he had told Ida Raughton that he would not go to see him even on his death-bed; that his revulsion of feeling would be such that he should be only able to curse him for his crime. But she, with that gentleness of heart that never failed her, pleaded so with him to have pity on the man who, however deep his sin, had sinned alone for him, that she induced him to go.

"Remember," she said, "that even though he has done this awful deed, he did it for your sake; it was not done to benefit himself. Bad and wicked as it was, at least that can be pleaded for him."

"Yes," her lover answered, "I see his reason now. He thought that Walter had come between my happiness and me for ever, and in a moment of pity for me he did the deed. How little he knew me, if he thought I wished him dead!"

But even as he spoke he remembered that he had once cursed his brother, and had used the very words "I wish he were dead!" If it was upon this hasty expression that Smerdon had acted, then he, too, was a murderer.

He left Belmont an hour after the letter had arrived, and so, travelling as above described, stood outside Father Neümann's house on the night of the fifth day. The priest answered the door himself, and as he did so he put his finger upon his lip. "Are you the friend from England that is expected?" he asked.

"Yes," Penlyn said, speaking low in answer to the sign for silence. "He still lives?"

"He lives; but his hours draw to a close. Had you not come now you would not have found him alive."

"Let me see him at once."

"Come. His mother is with him."

He followed the Curé into a room sparsely furnished, and of unpolished pine-wood; a room on which there was no carpet and but little furniture; and there he saw the dying form of Philip Smerdon. Kneeling by the bedside, and praying while she sobbed bitterly, was a lady whom Lord Penlyn knew to be Smerdon's mother. She rose at his entrance, and brushed the tears from her eyes.

"You have come in time to see him die," she said, while her frame was convulsed with sobs. "He has been expecting you. He said he could not pass away until he had seen you."

Penlyn said some words of consolation to her, and then he asked:

"Is he conscious?"

The poor mother leant over the bed and spoke to him, and he opened his eyes.

"Your friend has come, Philip," she said.

A light came into his eyes as he saw Penlyn standing before him, and then in a hollow voice he asked her to leave them alone.

"I have something to say to him," he said; "and the time is short."

"Yes," he said when she was gone, and speaking faintly in answer to Penlyn, who said he had come as quickly as possible; "yes, I know it. I expected you. And now that you are here can you bring yourself to say that you forgive me?"

For one moment the other hesitated, then he said: "I forgive you. May God do so likewise."

"Ah! that is it-it is that that makes death terrible! But listen! I must speak at once, I have but a short time more. This is my last hour, I feel it, I know it."

"Do not distress yourself with speaking. Do not think of it now."

"Not think of it! When have I ever forgotten it! Come closer, listen. I thought he had come between you and Miss Raughton for ever. I never dreamed of the magnanimity he showed in that letter. Then I determined to kill him-I thought I could do it without it being known. I did not go to the 'Chase' on that morning, but, instead, tracked him from one place to another, disguised in a suit of workman's clothes that I had bought some time ago for a fancy dress ball. I thought he would never leave his club that night; but at last he came out, and then-then-God! I grow weaker! – I did it."

Penlyn buried his head in his hands as he listened to this recital, and once he made a sign as though begging Smerdon to stop, but he did not heed him.

"I had with me a dagger I bought at Tunis, a long, sharp knife of the kind used by the Arabs, and I loosened it from its sheath as we entered the Park, he walking a few steps ahead of me, and, evidently, thinking deeply. Between the lamps I quickened my pace and passed him, and then, turning round suddenly, I seized him by the coat and stabbed him to the heart. It was but the work of a moment and he fell instantly, exclaiming only as he did so, 'Murderer!' Then to give it the appearance of a murder committed for theft, I stooped over him and wrenched his watch away, and as I took it I saw that he was dead. The watch is at Occleve Chase, in the lowest drawer of my writing-desk."