Part 18

Samson was no sooner free than he sprang out of the gate with tremendous bounds and rushed to the head of the hunters. Always far in advance of all the others, he followed with impatient haste for hours the tracks leading through the desert, until he had overtaken the lions. When he saw the troop of fugitives, fresh ardor for battle seemed to seize upon him, and he dashed forward with such fierce eagerness that the dogs and the hunters could not keep up with him. He reached the lions almost alone, and with open jaws and a tremendous roar sprang with a mighty bound into the very midst of their group. They instantly surrounded him, fiercely attacked him, struck him to the earth with heavy blows from their paws, and tore his body with teeth and claws, while his brothers shouted in fury, “Death to the traitor!”

But before they could wound him dangerously, his mother was at his side roaring to his assailants, “Back! back!” Then she turned to Samson, who lay bleeding on the ground with foaming jaws: “Go back to your men, if you find your happiness with them. I lose you to-day for the second time. Go! go!” Without a single glance behind she continued her flight, the other lions followed her, and all soon disappeared beyond the mountains.

Meanwhile the pack had reached Samson, who was left alone. In the heat of the chase, they either did not recognize him or pretended not to do so, and pressed upon him thirsting for blood. He was still dazed by the recent battle, and the sudden attack of his hunting companions so astonished him, that he made no movement to defend himself. In an instant ten bloodhounds were hanging to each paw, six to his tail, eight to his ears, mane, and lips. He could only utter one piteous call for help, then he died under the bites of countless greedy teeth. His mother heard his death-cry at a long distance and returned without delay to help him. She came too late to save her son and could only share his fate. When the lord of the castle reached the spot, both lions were dead. He could do nothing but drive away the dogs, that they might not tear them to pieces and spoil their skins.

The nobleman had these made into a cover for his bed and a rug, and when afterward he had guests who were strangers, he proudly showed them the magnificent skins, and told them all the details of the history of the lions, one of which, amid great peril, he had captured partly with his own hand and made his chained slave, and the other he had killed in battle. Then the listeners admired his courage and praised him for his brave deeds.

THE FLOWER PRISON

Once upon a time a student took a summer journey through Switzerland. As a good gymnast, he was a bold and skilful mountain climber, who liked to scale the steepest cliffs and the highest peaks. In many ways he was an excellent young fellow; but he had no regard for animals and plants, which enjoy their lives as well as we, and do not harm human beings. This was very strange because he was a forester’s son, and people who live in the woods are usually fond of everything that blooms and runs and flies, except toadstools and beasts of prey. When he lived at his father’s house, the student shot squirrels and crows, often even cuckoos and thrushes, which enliven the silent forest with their calls and songs.

In Switzerland he would have liked to kill chamois and marmots; but he did not see these pretty creatures except in the zoölogical garden, where they were safe from his murderous gun. So he vented his love of destruction on the poor, defenceless flowers. If he came to an Alpine meadow, he behaved like a savage. He gathered all the blossoms he could reach, not a few to put in his hat, not to dry one or another to keep as a memento of the beautiful days of travel, not even to give to beloved friends or acquaintances, but from pure wantonness. He pulled them by dozens, by hundreds, till he had an immense bunch, which he carried for a while until he grew tired, and then merely threw it away.

He was especially fond of plucking Alpine roses and edelweiss, not only because they are particularly beautiful, but because they grow in places very hard to climb, so it needs much strength, skill, and courage to reach them.

One day he had again climbed the mountains with alpenstock and knapsack, and came to the border line of the perpetual snow. Below him lay the dark pine woods and the sunny pastures, on which cows with tinkling bells were grazing. He could only hear the distant sound, but did not see the cattle, the meadow, and the huts of the herdsmen, for he was far above the clouds and they concealed everything below. Before him was a steep field, completely covered with Alpine roses. Here and there an edelweiss raised its velvety, star-shaped blossom above the green grass. The student tore up all the flowers he saw, the single ones, those growing in bunches, the full-blown blossoms, the partly opened ones, and the buds. All were stuffed into his knapsack, which was soon filled. After spending an hour in this way, there were no more flowers to pick. The field, which had looked like a carpet richly embroidered with gold and silver, was now entirely green.

He looked around to try to discover a few more victims, and saw at some distance above him a large rock, which projected like a huge nose from the precipice. This boulder was completely covered with the most beautiful edelweiss. He had never seen so many of these wonderful blossoms in one place. It seemed as though they had fled there to find a refuge where they would be safe from the pursuit of hostile men, for it was almost impossible to reach them. The overhanging rock was connected with the mountain only by a narrow ridge like a bridge, and even this was so steep and rough that it would have been difficult even for a chamois to cross it.

“Aha, there’s something for me!” cried the student, joyously, and at once prepared to risk the dangerous crossing and reach the rock, where he meant to seize the edelweiss. But he had scarcely touched the narrow ridge, where he could only move forward on his hands and knees, when he suddenly saw a woman’s figure. Raising her finger in warning, she called loudly, “Stop!”

He stood up and stared at her in astonishment. Where could she have come from? he wondered. Had she perhaps been lying in the tall grass so that he did not see her? Her appearance was rather unlike other women. She was dainty, delicate rather than strong, small rather than large. She wore a full white silk gown over a green petticoat, and her little silvery white feet were bare. In her golden hair was a wreath of the most beautiful flowers of every color. In spite of her anger, her face was very lovely, and she was surrounded by a delicious perfume like the fragrance of roses, lilies, violets, and carnations, which could be noticed at a considerable distance.

The student quickly recovered from his surprise and took a step forward. But the stranger cried a second time: “Stop! No farther!”

“Why not?” he asked insolently. “Does this mountain belong to you?”

“Back!” she called, without answering his question, “you have nothing to do here.”

“You are very familiar,” he replied scornfully; “perhaps we know each other?”

“I know you,” said the stranger. “You are a wicked man. You are a murderer of the flowers. Look at your knapsack! It is filled with blossoms which you have cruelly killed. But you shall at least leave me these edelweiss. Why do you pursue them here? Cannot they be safe, even thus high above the world, from your designs?”

“I will not answer you in the same familiar way,” replied the student, merrily; “for it is my habit to be courteous to young ladies. But I shall not turn back for your sermon, excellent as it is. The flowers are for human beings. I want these edelweiss, and I shall do whatever I choose with them.”

He again began to climb and creep forward. The stranger drew back before him, exclaiming, “You will repent it.” He only laughed and soon reached the projecting rock. The white-robed girl was standing in the midst of the edelweiss, which were turning their silvery stars toward her from every direction as if imploring her aid.

“Let me warn you for the last time,” she cried; “do not sin against me and my flowers!”

The young man’s only answer was to break off a number of the finest edelweiss and offer the bouquet, with a mocking bow, to the beautiful, angry girl. She dealt him a light blow on the hand. It was as if a butterfly had brushed him with its wings in passing; but a shock darted like lightning through fingers and arm to the shoulder, and he was obliged to drop the flowers as if paralyzed.

“You have pronounced your own sentence. Go; before the day is over your punishment will overtake you,” she said solemnly, and before he could make any reply she had vanished.

Fear suddenly seized him, and he hurried as fast as he could away from the mysterious rock with the edelweiss, down to the pasture where the cows with the tinkling bells were grazing. He felt relieved when he saw the herdsman, asked for a drink of milk, and told him the strange adventure he had just had.

The herdsman listened intently, and said: “Do you know who that was? It was the Flower Queen.”

“What? Have you a Flower Queen in free Switzerland?” asked the student, forcing a jesting tone.

“Don’t mock,” replied the herdsman, very gravely. “She is powerful, and it is not wise to make her angry.”

The student wished to inquire still farther, and went on: “Queer that the royal lady runs about barefoot! Doesn’t she catch cold up here? Or is she trying the Kneipp cure?”

The herdsman cast a sullen look at him, turned his back, and went into his hut, whose door he banged loudly behind him. The student said no more and continued his way down the mountain.

True, he did not exactly believe the story of the Flower Queen and her power, yet he could not conquer a feeling of anxiety, and was much more careful in climbing than usual. He reached the little town at the foot of the mountains without accident, went to his hotel, flung the knapsack with the Alpine flowers carelessly into a corner of his room, and dressed for dinner.

When he opened his door to go to the dining room, he suddenly stood still in astonishment. In the corridor was a dense mass of flowers, which formed a ring around him. There were Alpine roses and edelweiss, gentians, rhododendrons, and violets, such as he had gathered in his love of destruction in the meadow above. And not only these, but tall, proud lilies and irises, modest forget-me-nots and primroses, fragrant jasmines and scentless corn-flowers and poppies, which he was in the habit of tearing up or breaking with his cane in his walks through the fields and meadows. He rubbed his eyes. His senses must be deceiving him. He had never seen these flowers in the passage before. To convince himself of their reality, he stepped forward and stretched his hand toward them. The flowers drew back the same distance, and were beyond his reach. He turned toward the side—the same thing happened. The flowers moved away before him and followed behind. Not until he almost struck the wall with his nose did the blossoms vanish before him; but wherever there was room for them on the floor to remain at the proper distance, they stood in close ranks about him. The flower circle moved with him, swiftly or slowly, as he walked quickly or slowly, stopped when he stopped, kept always at the same distance, and opened only when it met a wall or some similar obstruction.

“Hocus-pocus,” he muttered, turning on his heel to convince himself that he was shut in on all sides. After a moment’s thought, he shrugged his shoulders, thinking: “What harm will it do me? On the contrary, it is very amusing to be accompanied by a guard of flowers.”

He now went downstairs to the dining hall, where many other persons had gathered. He had secretly hoped that he was the only person who saw the ring of flowers, and it would be invisible to every one else. But he found at once that this was by no means the case. He had scarcely entered, surrounded by his moving circle of blossoms, when all the guests stopped eating and stared at him. Some half rose from their seats to see better, others even left them and came nearer. One little girl cried out, “Oh, look at the lovely flowers which are moving near us!” ran to the ring, and tried to gather a lily. But her hand grasped only the empty air, and running back to her mother, she hid her face in the folds of her gown, afraid of these queer flowers which the eye saw, yet the fingers could not touch.

The student pretended not to notice the stir in the dining room, and rapped for the waiter. The man came, started at the sight of the flowers which surrounded the guest and his table, and at first seemed to wish to climb over them. After a short hesitation, he changed his mind, and without heeding the student’s impatient calls he went quickly to the head waiter to tell him the extraordinary thing which he had just seen. The head waiter told the proprietor of the hotel, and the latter went himself to the student, toward whom all eyes were turned.

“Sir,” said the landlord, “we cannot have any jugglery here. I beg you to stop this trick.”

“I won’t allow you to say such things to me,” cried the student, excitedly. “I’m no juggler, I am a student.”

“Then put a stop to this flower show,” ordered the hotel keeper, sternly.

The student only shrugged his shoulders, muttering impatiently, “I cannot.”

“In that case,” replied the hotel-keeper, “I must ask you to leave my house at once.”

“Very well,” answered the student, “I’ll go early to-morrow morning. But give me something to eat now, for I’ve been climbing among the mountains all day and am hungry.”

“No, you’ll get nothing here, and I can’t keep you till to-morrow,” said the hotel-keeper, resolutely.

The student could do nothing but rise and leave the dining room, still surrounded by his flower ring, which steadily kept pace with him. When he reached his chamber and began to pack, he found his knapsack empty. All the flowers with which he had filled it had disappeared.

He was obliged to carry his baggage himself, for no hotel servant or porter would be seen in the street with him and his moving circle of flowers. Children and grown people ran after him with shouts, and at every hotel where he went with his escort of flowers and yelling street-urchins he was refused admittance. He could get neither a warm supper nor a bed, and had nothing to do except, late in the evening, to take a train and leave the inhospitable little city.

He had scarcely entered the station when the flowers vanished. He uttered a sigh of relief, for he thought he was freed from his flower prison. The Flower Queen, he believed gleefully, probably only had power in her mountain and in the valley at its foot. It went no farther. But he was very much mistaken, as he was soon to discover. The flowers had disappeared only because, in the narrow space, whose walls he could reach everywhere by stretching out his hands and feet, there was no room for their circle. But he had scarcely gone out after a very uncomfortable night, scarcely set foot on the broad steps of the station, when the ring closed around him and moved on at the same pace.

Fury seized him and he hurled his long alpenstock into the midst of the thick, fresh blossoms. Like lightning they swayed far apart, though without separating, and the staff did not touch them. When, grinding his teeth, he picked it up, the gap closed, and the circle was as regular as before. He saw that it would do no good to act like a crazy man. The flower prison was securely fastened. He could not escape from it. All the running, leaping, striking, and throwing missiles was useless. The flowers were more nimble than he, and the distance between him and the wide hedge of living flowers never changed.

He actually hated the bright blossoms, whose beauty seemed to mock him, and shut his eyes so that he could not see them. But he could smell their perfume, and the delicious fragrance would not let him forget them for a moment. To escape, he took the only way which had proved possible. Amid the stares of all the people in the railroad station, he went on the first train and travelled without stopping home to his father, the forester.

When the forester saw his son surrounded by his guard of rare and common flowers, mountain and field blossoms, he remained motionless with amazement, and could scarcely find words to ask, “Boy, what does this mean?”

The student told him how the ring had suddenly sprung up around him, and had left him only in the railroad station; but did not mention his destruction of the Alpine blossoms and his meeting with the Flower Queen.

“Oh, father,” he pleaded, after he had finished his story, “help me, tell me how I can escape from this flower prison. If I don’t get rid of it, it will be impossible for me to live among human beings.”

The forester thought a long time, then he said: “I have never seen such a thing, and don’t understand it. But so far as I know, flowers don’t bloom here in the winter. It will soon be autumn. Stay in the house till the frost comes. That will probably kill your blossoms, unless all the laws of nature fail.”

This was a happy thought. The student threw his arms around his wise father’s neck. He was obliged to interrupt his studies, for he could not return to the university. But he tried to have patience. Four months would soon be over, then Christmas would come, and his misery would be ended.

To shut out the unbearable sight of the flowers, he locked himself into an attic room, which was almost as small as a closet. No prison could be so uncomfortable as this tiny chamber. But he preferred to be surrounded by board walls, rather than by the moving circle of flowers. He ventured out of his hiding place only on dark nights to stretch his stiff limbs a trifle by a walk through the forest, and to breathe a little fresh air. He did not mind running against trees and stumbling over stumps and roots. He preferred anything, even bruises, bumps, and aching limbs, to his prison of flowers. Yet even during the darkest nights they did not remain wholly invisible; for besides the fragrance, a faint light came from the blossoms, and they shone around him like an army of glow-worms.

He found the time very long, but it gradually passed, and Christmas came. The winter proved unusually severe. The snow lay heaped breast-high, and in the December nights one could hear the boughs, outside cracking in the forest. After a very cold night, the student ventured out into the forest early in the morning. He had scarcely passed the door of the house when the circle of flowers closed around him. He waded through the deep snow, muttering grimly, “Just wait a little while, this will finish you.” He stayed in the woods until he was almost frozen. His nose was blue, his ears were stiff, his fingers like ice; but the flowers did not seem to be injured by the cold, and were as fresh and fragrant on the snow as if it were the loveliest May day. So, after several hours of suffering, the student went back to the forest house, and with chattering teeth said, “Father, the frost will kill me before it harms those hateful flowers.”

“Yes, my poor boy,” replied his father, sadly, “and now my knowledge is over. Think for yourself till you find some way to break this magic spell.”

The student shut himself up again in his tiny garret room, and thought of his misfortune and how he could escape from it. At last he had an idea. Perhaps his father was right; the cold must surely kill the flowers, only the frost was not severe enough here. Suppose he should go to the north pole, or as near it as he could get? He would see whether the blossoms would stand it there too.

No sooner was this plan thought of than it was done. His preparations were soon made, and that very evening he left his home to go through the fog and darkness to take the train in the nearest city. For several days he travelled without stopping straight toward the north, as far as the railroad went, then he went on board a whaler, which carried him far up into the icy seas, and did not leave the vessel until the frozen water would allow no farther passage. But he had scarcely set his foot upon the boundless plain of ice when the whole circlet of flowers sprang up on it and moved along with him as gayly as ever, blossoming as brightly about him as if the mildest spring breeze was stirring their petals.

This time the student determined to defy them. He set forth, dragging after him a little sledge loaded with provisions, thinking spitefully how much the blossoms would suffer in the fierce winter cold. The northern lights alone brightened the gloomy, pathless wilderness of ice; the polar bears often trotted up to him, but stopped when they saw the unknown flowers, and dared not cross their circle. For a week the young man bore all the discomforts of the polar night; the cold, and the tiresome tramping over the rough ice; then he saw that the flowers were not harmed in the least, and discouraged and disheartened he gave up the trial. Now he attempted to find a ship again. It was not easy, and when, after many anxious days, he at last discovered one, he sailed back, always keeping shut in his cabin, to Hamburg.