The Headsman - James Fenimore Cooper
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The worthy clavier made this explanation with eyes that glistened with
moisture, occasionally interrupting himself to murmur a prayer of
thanksgiving. He passed from one of the party to the other, not even
neglecting the muleteers, examining their limbs, and more especially their
ears, to see that they had quite escaped the influence of the frost, and
was only happy when assured by his own observation that the terrible
danger they had run was not likely to be attended by any injurious
consequences.
"We are accustomed to see many accidents of this nature," he said,
smilingly, when the examination was satisfactorily ended, "and practice
has made us quick of sight in these matters. The blessed Maria be praised,
and adoration to her holy Son, that you have all got through the night so
well! There is a warm breakfast in readiness in the convent kitchen, and,
one solemn duty performed, we will go up the rocks to enjoy it. The little
building near us is the last earthly abode of those who perish on this
side the mountain, and whose remains are unclaimed. None of our canons
pass the spot without offering a prayer in behalf of their souls. Kneel
with me, then, you that have so much reason to be grateful to God, and
join in the petition."
Father Xavier knelt on the rocks, and all the Catholics of the party
united with him in the prayer for the dead. The Baron de Willading, his
daughter and their attendants stood uncovered the while for though their
Protestant opinions rejected such a mediation as useless, they deeply felt
the solemnity and holy character of the sacrifice. The clavier arose with
a countenance that was beaming and bright as the morning sun which, just
at that moment, appeared above the summits of the Alps, casting its genial
and bland warmth on the group, the brown huts, and the mountain side.
"Thou art a heretic," he said affectionately to Adelheid, in whom he felt
the interest, to which her youth and beauty, and the great danger they had
so lately run in company, very naturally gave birth. "Thou art an
impenitent heretic, but we will hot cast thee off; notwithstanding thy
obstinacy and crimes, thou seest that the saints can interest themselves
in the behalf of obstinate sinners, or thou and all with thee would have
surely been lost."
This was said in a way to draw a smile from Adelheid, who received his
accusations as so many friendly and playful reproaches. As a token of
peace between them, she offered her hand to the monk, with a request that
he would aid her in getting into the saddle.
"Dost thou remark the brutes!" said the Signor Grimaldi, pointing to the
animals, who were gravely seated before the window of the bone-house, with
relaxed jaws, keeping their eyes riveted on its entrance, or window. "Thy
St. Bernard dogs, father, seem trained to serve a Christian in all ways,
whether living or dead."
"Their quiet attitude and decent attention might indeed justify such a
remark! Didst thou ever note such conduct in Uberto before?" returned the
Augustine, addressing the servants of the convent, for the actions of the
animals were a study and a subject of great interest to all of St.
Bernard.
"They tell me that another fresh body has been put into the house, since I
last came down the mountain" remarked Pierre, who was quietly disposing
of a mule in a manner more favorable for Adelheid to mount: "the mastiff
scents the dead. It was this that brought him to the Refuge last night,
Heaven be praised for the mercy!"
This was said with the indifference that habit is apt to create, for the
usage of leaving bodies uninterred had no influence on the feelings of the
guide, but it did not the less strike those who had descended from the
convent.
"Thou art the last that came down thyself," said one of the servants; "nor
have any come up, but those who are now safe in the convent, taking their
rest after last night's tempest."
"How canst utter this idle nonsense, Henri, when a fresh body is in the
house! This lady counted them but now, and there are four; three was the
number that I showed the Piedmontese noble whom I led from Aoste, the day
thou meanest!"
"Look to this;" said the clavier, turning abruptly away from Adelheid,
whom he was on the point of helping into the saddle.
The men entered the gloomy vault, whence they soon returned bearing a
body, which they placed with its back against the wall of the building, in
the open air. A cloak was over the head and face, as if the garment had
been thus arranged to exclude the cold.
"He hath perished the past night, mistaking the bone-house for the
Refuge!" exclaimed the clavier: "Maria and her Son intercede for his
soul!"
"Is the unfortunate man truly dead?" asked the Genoese with more of
worldly care, and with greater practice in the investigation of facts.
"The frozen sleep long before the currents of life cease entirely to run."
The Augustine commanded his followers to remove the cloak, though with
little hope that the suggestion of the other would prove true. When the
cloth was raised, the collapsed and pallid features of one in whom life
was unequivocally extinct were exposed to view. Unlike most of those that
perish of cold, who usually sink into the long sleep of eternity by a
gradual numbness and a slowly increasing unconsciousness, there was an
expression of pain in the countenance of the stranger which seemed to
announce that his parting struggles had been severe, and that he had
resigned his hold of that mysterious principle which connects the soul to
the body, with anguish. A shriek from Christine interrupted the awful gaze
of the travellers, and drew their looks in another direction. She was
clinging to the neck of Adelheid, her arms appearing to writhe with the
effort to incorporate heir two bodies into one.
"It is he! It is he!" muttered the frightened and half frantic girl,
burying her pale face in the bosom of her friend. "Oh! God!--it is he!"
"Of whom art thou speaking, dear?" demanded the wondering, but not the
less awe-struck, Adelheid, believing that the weakened nerves of the poor
girl were unstrung by the horror of the spectacle--"it is a traveller like
ourselves, that has unhappily perished in the very storm from which, by
the kindness of Providence, we have been permitted to escape. Thou
shouldst not tremble thus; for, fearful as it is, he is in a condition to
which we all must come."
"So soon! so soon! so suddenly--oh! it is he!" Adelheid, alarmed at the
violence of Christine's feelings, was quite at a loss to account for them,
when the relapsed grasp and the dying voice showed that her friend had
fainted. Sigismund was one of the first to come to the assistance of his
sister, who was soon restored to consciousness by the ordinary
applications. In order to effect the cure she was borne to a rock at some
little distance from the rest of the party, where none of the other sex
presumed to come, with the exception of her brother. The latter staid but
a moment, for a stir in the little party at the bone-house induced him to
go thither. His return was slow, thoughtful, and sad.
"The feelings of our poor Christine have been unhinged, and she is too
easily excited to undergo the vicissitudes of a journey" observed
Adelheid, after having announced the restoration of the sufferer to her
senses; "have you seen her thus before?"
"No angel could be more tranquil and happy than my cruelly treated sister
was until this last disgrace;--you appear ignorant yourself of the
melancholy truth?"
Adelheid looked her surprise.
"The dead man is he who was so lately intended to be the master of my
sister's happiness, and the wounds on his body leave little doubt that he
has been murdered."
The emotion of Christine needed no further explanation.
"Murdered!" repeated Adelheid, in a whisper.
"Of that frightful truth there can be no question. Your father and our
friends are now employed in making the examinations which may hereafter be
useful in discovering the authors of the deed."
"Sigismund?"
"What wouldst thou, Adelheid?"
"Thou hast felt resentment against this unfortunate man?"
"I deny it not: could a brother feel otherwise?"
"But now--now that God hath so fearfully visited him?"
"From my soul I forgive him. Had we met in Italy, whither I knew he was
going--but this is foolish."
"Worse than that, Sigismund."
"From my inmost soul I pardon him. I never thought him worthy of her whose
simple affection, were won by the first signs of his pretended into rest;
but I could not wish him so cruel and sudden an end. May God have mercy on
him, as he is pardoned by me!"
Adelheid received the silent pressure of the hand which followed with
pious satisfaction. They then separated, he to join the group that was
collected around the body, and she to take her station again near
Christine. The former, however, was met by the Signor Grimaldi, who urged
his immediate departure with the females for the convent, promising that
the rest of the travellers should follow as soon as the present melancholy
duty was ended. As Sigismund had no wish to be a party in what was going
on, and there was reason to think his sister would be spared much pain by
quitting the spot, he gladly acquiesced in the proposal. Immediate steps
were taken for its accomplishment.
Christine mounted her mule, in obedience to her brother's desire, quietly,
and without remonstrance; but her death-like countenance and fixed eye
betrayed the violence of the shock she had received. During the whole of
the ride to the convent she spoke not, and, as those around her felt for,
and understood, her distress, the little cavalcade could not have been
more melancholy and silent had it borne with it the body of the slain. In
an hour they reached the long sought for and so anxiously desired place of
rest.
While this disposition of the feebler portion of the party was making, a
different scene had taken place near what have been already so well called
the houses of the living and the dead. As there existed no human
habitation within several leagues of the abode of the Augustines on either
side of the mountain, and as the paths were much frequented in the summer,
the monks exercised a species of civil jurisdiction in such cases as
required a prompt exercise of justice, or a necessary respect for those
forms that might be important in its ad ministration hereafter before the
more regular authorities. It was no sooner known, therefore, that there
was reason to suspect an act of violence had been committed, than the good
clavier set seriously about taking the necessary steps to authenticate all
those circumstances that could be accurately ascertained.
The identity of the body as that of Jacques Colis, a small but substantial
proprietor of the country of Vaud, was quickly established. To this fact
not only several of the travellers could testify, but he was also known to
one of the muleteers, of whom he had engaged a beast to be left at Aoste
and, it will also be remembered, he had been seen by Pierre at Martigny,
while making his arrangements to puss the mountain. Of the mule there were
no other traces than a few natural signs around the building, but which
might equally be attributed to the beasts that still awaited the leisure
of the travellers. The manner in which the unhappy man had come by his
death admitted of no dispute. There were several wounds in the body, and a
knife, of the sort then much used by travellers of an ordinary class, was
left sticking in his back in a position to render it impossible to
attribute the end of the sufferer to suicide. The clothes, too, exhibited
proofs of a struggle, for they were torn and soiled, but nothing had been
taken away. A little gold was found in the pockets, and though in no great
plenty still enough to weaken the first impression that there had also
been a robbery.
"This is wonderful!" observed the good clavier as he noted the last
circumstance; "the dross which leads so many souls to damnation has been
neglected while Christian blood has been shed! This seems an act of
vengeance rather than of cupidity. Let us now examine if any proofs are to
be found of the scene of this tragedy."
The search was unsuccessful. The whole of the surrounding region being
composed of ferruginous rocks and their _debris_, it would not, indeed,
have been an easy matter to trace the march of an army by their footsteps.
The stain of blood, however, was nowhere discoverable, except on the spot
where the body had been found. The house itself furnished no particular
evidence of the bloody scene of which it had been a witness. The bones of
those who had died long before were lying on the stones, it is true,
broken and scattered; but, as the curious were wont to stop, and sometimes
to enter among and handle these remains of mortality, there was nothing
new or peculiar in their present condition.
The interior of the dead-house was obscure, and suited, in this particular
at least, to its solemn office. While making the latter part of their
examination, the monk and the two nobles, who began to feel a lively
interest in the late event, stood before the window, gazing in at the
gloomy but instructive scene. One body was so placed as to receive a few
of the direct rays of the morning light, and it was consequently much more
conspicuous than the rest, though even this was a dark and withered mummy
that presented scarcely a vestige; of the being it had been. Like all the
others whose parts still clung together, it had been placed against the
wall, in the attitude of one that is seated, with the head fallen forward.
The latter circumstance had brought the blackened and shrivelled face into
the line of light. It had the ghastly grin of death, the features being
distorted by the process of evaporation, and was altogether a revolting
but salutary monitor of the common lot.
"'Tis the body of the poor vine-dresser;" remarked the monk, more
accustomed to the spectacle than his companions, who had shrunk from the
sight; "he unwisely slept on yonder naked rock, and it proved to him the
sleep of death. There have been many masses for his soul, but what is left
of his material remains still lie unclaimed. But--how is this! Pierre,
thou hast lately passed this place; what was the number of the bodies, at
thy last visit?"
"Three, reverend clavier; and yet the ladies spoke of four. I looked for
the fourth when in the building, but there appeared none fresh, except
this of poor Jacques Colis."
"Come hither, and say if there do not appear to be two in the far
corner--here, where the body of thy old comrade the guide was placed, from
respect for his calling; surely, there at least is a change in its
position!"
Pierre approached, and taking off his cap in reverence, he leaned forward
in the building, so as to exclude the external light from his eyes.
"Father!" he said, drawing back in surprise, "there is truly another;
though I overlooked it when we entered the place."
"This must be examined into! The crime may be greater than we had
believed!"
The servants of the convent and Pierre, whose long services rendered him a
familiar of the brotherhood, now re-entered the building, while those
without impatiently awaited the result. A cry from the interior prepared
the latter for some fresh subject of horror, when Pierre and his companion
quickly reappeared, dragging a living man into the open air. When the
light permitted, those who knew him recognized the mild demeanor, the
subdued look, and the uneasy, distrustful glance of Balthazar.
The first sensation of the spectators was that of open amazement; but dark
suspicion followed. The baron, the two Genoese, and the monk, had all been
witnesses of the scene in the great square of Vevey. The person of the
headsman had become so well known to them by the passage on the lake and
the event just alluded to, that there was not a moment of doubt touching
his identity, and, coupled with the circumstances of that morning, there
remained little more that the clue was now found to the cause of the
murder.
We shall not stop to relate the particulars of the examination. It was
short, reserved, and had the character of an investigation instituted more
for the sake of form, than from any incertitude there could exist on the
subject of the facts. When the necessary-inquiries were ended, the two
nobles mounted. Father Xavier led the way, and the whole party proceeded
towards the summit of the pass, leading Balthazar a prisoner, and leaving
the body of Jacques Colis to its final rest, in that place where so many
human forms had evaporated into air before him, unless those who had felt
an interest in him in life should see fit to claim his remains.
The ascent between the Refuge and the summit of St. Bernard is much more
severe than on any other part of the road. The end of the convent,
overhanging the northern brow of the gorge, and looking like a mass of
that ferruginous and melancholy rock which gave the whole region so wild
and so unearthly an aspect, soon became visible, carved and moulded into
the shape of a rude human habitation. The last pitch was so steep as to
be formed into a sort of stair-way, up which the groaning mules toiled
with difficulty. This labor overcome, the party stood on the highest point
of the pass. Another minute brought them to the door of the convent.
Chapter XXV.
------Hadst thou not been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
Noted, and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind.
Shakspeare.
The arrival of Sigismund's party at the hospice preceded that of the other
travellers more than an hour. They were received with the hospitality with
which all were then welcomed at this celebrated convent; the visits of the
curious and the vulgar not having blunted the benevolence of the monks,
who, mostly accustomed to entertain the low-born and ignorant, were always
happy to relieve the monotony of their solitude by intercourse with guests
of a superior class. The good clavier had prepared the way for their
reception; for even on the wild ridge of St. Bernard, we do not fare the
worse for carrying with us a prestige of that rank and consideration that
are enjoyed in the world below. Although a mild Christian-like good-will
were manifested to all, the heiress of Willading, a name that was
generally known and honored between the Alps and the Jura, met with those
proofs of _empressement_ and deference which betray the secret thought, in
despite of conventional forms and which told her, plainer than the words
of welcome, that the retired Augustines were not sorry to see so fair and
so noble a specimen of their species within their dreary walls.
All this, however, was lost on Sigismund. He was too much occupied with
the events of the morning to note other things; and, first committing
Adelheid and his sister to the care of their women, he went into the open
air in order to await the arrival of the rest.
As it has been mentioned, the existence of the venerable convent of St.
Bernard dates from a very remote period of Christianity. It stands on the
very brow of the precipice which forms the last steep ascent in mounting
to the Col. The building is a high, narrow, but vast, barrack-looking
edifice, built of the ferruginous stone of the region, having its gable
placed toward the Valais, and its front stretching in the direction of the
gorge in which it stands. Immediately before its principal door, the rock
rises in an ill-shapen hillock, across which runs the path to Italy. This
is literally the highest point of the pass, as the building itself is the
most elevated habitable abode in Europe. At this spot, the distance from
rock to rock, spanning the gorge, may be a hundred yards, the wild and
reddish piles rising on each side for more than a thousand feet. These are
merely dwarfs, however, among their sister piles, several of which, in
plain view of the convent, reach to the height of eternal snow. This point
in the road attained, the path began immediately to descend, and the
drippings of a snow-bank before the convent door, which had resisted the
greatest heat of the past summer, ran partly into the valley of the Rhone,
and partly into Piedmont; the waters, after a long and devious course
through the plains of France and Italy, meeting again in the common basin
of the Mediterranean. The path, on quitting the convent, runs between the
base of the rocks on its right and a little limpid lake on its left, the
latter occupying nearly the entire cavity of the valley of the gorge. It
then disappears between natural palisades of rock, at the other extremity
of the Col. This is the point where the superfluous waters of the lake
find their outlet, descending swiftly, in a brawling little brook, on the
sunny side of the Alps. The frontier of Italy is met on the margin of the
lake, a long musket-shot from the abode of the Augustines, and near the
site of a temple that the Romans had raised in honor of Jupiter, in his
attribute of director of storms.
Such was the outline of the view which presented itself to Sigismund, when
he left the building to while away the time that must necessarily elapse
before the arrival of the rest of the party. The hour was still early,
though the great altitude of the site of the convent had brought it
beneath the influence of the sun's rays an hour before. He had learned
from a servant of the Augustines, that a number of ordinary travellers, of
whom in the fine season hundreds at a time frequently passed the night in
their dormitories, were now breaking their fasts in the refectory of the
peasants, and he was willing to avoid the questions that their curiosity
might prompt when they came to hear what had occurred lower down on the
mountain. One of the brotherhood was caressing four or five enormous
mastiffs, that were leaping about and barking with deep throats in front
of the convent, while old Uberto moved among them with a gravity and
respect that better suited his years. Perceiving his guest, the Augustine
quitted the dogs, and, lifting his eastern-looking cap, he gave him the
salutation of the morning. Sigismund met the frank smile of the canon, who
like himself was young with a fit return. The occasion was such as
Sigismund desired, and a friendly discourse succeeded while they paced
along the margin of the lake, holding the path that leads across the Col.
"You are young in your charitable office, brother," remarked the soldier,
when familiarity was a little established. "This will be among the first
of the winters you will have passed at your benevolent post?"
"It will make the eighth, as novice and as canon. We are early trained to
this kind of life, though no practice will enable any of us to withstand
the effect which the thin air and intense cold produce on the lungs many
winters in succession. We go down to Martigny when there is occasion, and
breathe an atmosphere better suited to man. Thou hadst an angry storm
below, the past night?"
"So angry, that we thank God it is over, and that we are left to share
your hospitality. Were there many on the mountain besides ourselves, or
did any come up from Italy?"
"There were none but those who are now in the common refectory, and none
came from Aoste. The season for the traveller is over. This is a month in
which we see only those who are much pressed, and who have their reasons
for trusting the weather. In the summer we sometimes lodge a thousand
guests."
"They whom ye receive have reason to be thankful, reverend Augustine; for,
in sooth, this does not seem a region that abounds in its fruits."
Sigismund and the monk looked around at the vast piles of ragged naked
rocks, and they smiled as their eyes met.
"Nature gives literally nothing," answered the Augustine: "even the fuel
that warms us is transported leagues on the backs of mules, and thou wilt
readily conceive that of all others this is a necessary we cannot forego.
Happily, we have some of our ancient, and what were once rich, endowments;
and--"
The young canon hesitated to proceed.
"You were about to say, father, that they who have the means to show
gratitude are not always unmindful of the wants of those, who share the
same hospitality without possessing the same ability to manifest their
respect for the institution."
The Augustine bowed, and he turned the discourse by pointing out the
frontiers of Italy, and the site of the ancient temple; both of which they
had this time reached. An animal moved among the rocks, and attracted
their attention.
"Can it be a chamois!" exclaimed Sigismund, whose blood began to quicken
with a hunter's eagerness: "I would I had arms!"
"It is a dog, though not of our mountain breed! The mastiffs of the
convent have failed in hospitality, and the poor beast has been driven to
take refuge in this retired spot, in waiting for his master, who probably
makes one of the party in the refectory. See, they come; their approaching
footsteps have brought the cautious animal from his cover."