CHAPTER XVI.

A PERILOUS PASS.

The parting from Raphael gave a keen pang to Horace. He could scarcely have believed that in so short a space of time, any human being could have obtained so strong a hold upon his affections. Pity, gratitude, admiration had combined in a three-fold cord to knit to his heart the man whose fate had been so singularly linked with his own, and who was now freely risking life to save him. But Horace had no time to dwell on tender recollections at a moment like this. The absorbing instinct of self-preservation claimed now the first place in his mind. Every minute of delay increased the danger of the dreaded Matteo's return. Horace must pass along that perilous ledge, close in front of the ruffian whose strong arm could, were his slightest suspicion aroused, hurl the stripling over the beetling precipice to lie a mangled corpse in the valley below.

"Speranza! Speranza! Hope!" Horace repeated to himself, less from the fear that in the excitement of the moment the pass-word might escape his memory, than from an effort to draw encouragement from the sound. "God be my helper! God be my hope!" And drawing Raphael's mantle yet more closely round his form, and pulling the hat lower over his eyes, with a palpitating heart, yet a firm, brave step, Horace Cleveland strode forth into the moonlight, which had never before appeared to him so painfully brilliant.

"Ha, Raphael, you are not going thither! It is of no avail! You will only turn your brain altogether!" exclaimed Marco, as Horace approached him, and to the no small alarm of the fugitive, the bandit actually laid a strong, heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Speranza!" muttered Horace, shaking himself loose from a grasp which seemed to him like that of death. The fugitive could scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses when he found himself actually striding onwards beyond the perilous spot. He expected every moment to be overtaken by a bullet, or to hear a sudden shout of recognition. He dared not look behind him, nor much quicken his steps, but instinctively he held his breath till he had gained the wood at the further end of the ledge. Then, indeed a low, fervent thanksgiving burst from the lips of Horace, and he felt himself really free.

The sound of falling water had every minute become more and more distinct. Horace, with eager hope, hurried forward in the direction from whence it came. Yet a little struggling through bramble and bush, trying the most direct way rather than the clearest, while still listening with painful anxiety for sound of pursuit, and the youth reached the bank of a stream which was rushing on as if eager to plunge madly down into the valley. The trunk of a tree lay over it, cutting with its dark, rough outline the path of quivering silver which the moonbeams had thrown across the waters. Here must have been the scene of the fearful catastrophe which Marco had related.

Horace shuddered at the sight of those dark, rapid waters in which a fellow-creature so lately had perished. He had now, however, no time for reflecting on the untimely fate of the wretched Enrico. Remembering the directions of Raphael, Horace was about to track the upward course of the stream, when he was startled by a faint cry, as of a human voice, which mingled with the rushing noise of the cataract. Horace was not of a superstitious nature; but it is no marvel that, when his nerves were quivering from the tension required for a great effort—at that hour of night—in that desolate place—on the very spot where he believed that, but a few hours before, a miserable man had been swept into eternity— that cry should seem to curdle the blood in his veins.

Again it rose, more distinct than before; and now superstition—if such a feeling had for a moment arisen—gave place to one more worthy. Horace was many yards from the head of the cataract, though he could see its spray white in the moonlight; the way to it was very thickly overgrown with brushwood, through which mortal foot had never yet made its way.

He held a short debate in his mind as to the course which he ought to pursue; whether he should seek his own safety by going to the right, or whether he should force a difficult passage to the top of the fall, in hopes of giving aid to some fellow-creature in distress. Was it not possible that Enrico, saved by some incomprehensible miracle, might be there in a position of peril from which he had no power to extricate himself? Might not Horace give aid to the brother of Raphael? That last thought destroyed every doubt, every selfish calculation of personal risk. Horace only considered how he might reach the place, and though not yet daring to answer the cry, he began with all the activity and energy on which he once had prided himself, to make his way to the edge of the cascata.

When the English youth had accomplished his object, how wondrous was the scene which presented itself to his view as he bent forward to gaze down the cascade. The body of water was not large, but the depth of the fall was very great, and one sheet of white foam overspread the stream which plunged seething, hissing, roaring—down—down—down—till it was lost in the cloud of spray which, hundreds of feet below, veiled the bottom of the cataract. Exquisite was the beauty of the fall, especially as now seen by the misty, silvery light of the moon, which gave a ghastly grandeur to the wild, bold, wooded rocks, which the cataract seemed to be cleaving asunder like an archangel's glittering sword. But the eye of Horace was riveted on one dark object in the midst of the foam, not many feet below the summit. At the first glance, he deemed that it might be a fragment of rock that had endured for ages the dash and fret of the restless waters; but no; it moved—it clung—a human being, suspended as it seemed by miracle, was living—breathing in the very heart of the dizzying roar and rush!

"How can I help you?" shouted out Horace, forgetful of everything but the frightful situation of Enrico.

"A rope—quick—my strength is giving way!" Hollow and strange came the scarcely articulate sounds.

Horace struck his brow with his hand. "What can I do? Oh, what can I do? A rope were worth the ransom of a king!"

"I can't hold out long; the rush will bear me down." The voice was fainter than before.

Horace drew Raphael's mantle from his shoulders; he tore from it strip after strip; he could think of no other means of saving the perishing man. With fingers which trembled with nervous haste, he proceeded to tie together these unmanageable substitutes for a rope. Tightly, he knotted them, and tried each knot; for the awful consequences, were a single one to give way, were too terrible to think of. His movements were quickened by the horrible dread that he would see Enrico, exhausted and despairing, whirled down to certain death at the very moment when deliverance appeared at hand.

"Haste, or I'm lost!" cried the voice from the fall.

Horace was engaged in fastening one end of his improvised rope round a tree which bent over the cataract. The stem was so slender that he almost feared lest its roots should give way with the strain which would be upon it, but there was no other tree sufficiently close to the edge to serve his purpose.

"Now!" exclaimed Horace, as he flung the thick knotted rope towards the spot where the indistinctly seen form of Enrico broke the long line of foam.

At that moment a cloud passed over the moon, which had till then been shining in untroubled brightness.

"Where is it? I can't find it!" cried Enrico, in a tone of anguish.

Horace's interest rose to agony. He had done all that he could do—he had strained every nerve—he had now nothing left but the means of prayer. Fervently he prayed for light—light on the fearful, the fatal darkness. Like a film the cloud rolled away; he looked down—almost fearing to look—Enrico was still clinging below.

"I see it, but I can't reach it!" shrieked the miserable man; the dark line of the rope lay on the foam just beyond his outstretched hand.

Horace was almost in despair; he had no power to throw it nearer; the current of the waters was gradually drawing the life-rope further away from their victim.

"Make a spring at it!" exclaimed Horace, and shuddered at his own words, lest Enrico should obey, miss the rope, and be dashed to pieces down the fall.

"He has done it! Oh, merciful Heaven!" gasped the youth, almost faint with extreme excitement. "Hold on, hold on for your life!" And with a strength beyond his years—a strength which seemed to be superhuman—Horace, throwing his whole weight on the upper end of the rope, drew it hand over hand towards him. He was in momentary dread of feeling it suddenly become light from the yielding of a knot, or from the numbed hands below giving up their desperate grasp; he was not without an undefined sense of terror lest he should be overbalanced himself, and instead of saving Enrico, be dashed with him over the abyss. Not even when Horace had passed Marco in safety had he experienced a feeling of relief so intense as when Enrico's dripping head appeared above the fall, and, a moment after, with a tremendous effort, he swung himself on the bank.

"Thank God! Oh, thank God!" exclaimed Horace.

Enrico lay motionless, senseless. His failing powers had been concentrated on that one effort, and he swooned as soon as it had been made.

Horace did all that he could to fan the flickering spark of life. He first dragged Enrico a few paces from the edge; for in that moment of dizzy horror, he could not disconnect nearness to the Cascata della Morte from the idea of danger; he longed to get beyond hearing of its roar. He then removed part of the clothes of the half-drowned man, which were torn, saturated, and dripping with water. He chafed Enrico's limbs, breathed on his lips, tried to impart warmth to the bruised and benumbed frame. He wrung the water from the long black hair which hung in tangled strands over the ghastly face, which even in its senselessness retained a look of distress which told of the agony of the late struggle for life.

While Horace is thus engaged, I will relate how Enrico had come into the strange and fearful position from which he had been thus wonderfully rescued.

Slipping on the rough tree-bridge and losing his balance, Enrico had fallen into the stream, struggling in vain with the current, and had been (as Marco had described), borne onward to the edge of the cataract. In vain had he attempted to catch at the reeds of grasses near, in vain he had shrieked for help. He had been whirled on, and then over in that awful plunge which involved almost inevitable destruction!

From the centre of the rock wall that backed the cataract, and not very far from the summit, jutted out small fragment of crag, round and over which the furious waters had for centuries dashed, bearing away articles of the solid stone by ceaseless wear, yet leaving a tooth-like projection, only visible when the flood was not full, though its opposition always whirled the spray in wider circles from that spot.

On this projection the unfortunate Enrico was dashed, stunned, and bruised. Caught by his clothes, he had been suspended for some minutes in an almost unconscious state, unable even to utter a cry. He revived, indeed, but only to become aware of the full horrors of his situation. His eyes being, from his position, turned below, he beheld the awful depth down which he expected every moment to be hurled, as the fierce hissing waters, with unceasing flow, seemed like merciless enemies determined to tear him down, to wrench him away from the one little point of refuge afforded by the projecting crag to which he now wildly clung.

Enrico's soul sickened, his brain reeled; the din of the torrent rushing, rolling, roaring—above, below—almost maddened the wretched man! A strange idea possessed his mind, that it was Raphael's prayer which suspended him now, as it were, by a hair above the gulf, of not only temporal but eternal destruction. If Raphael should cease, even for a moment, to pray, the half-frenzied Enrico believed that the waters would have their wild will, and bear him crashing down to perdition, swathed in the white shroud of their foam!

Thus passed the fearful time till brief twilight deepened into night. Still Enrico clung to his crag, its shape enabling him so to support his person that its weight did not rest on his hands, though all their strength was needed to enable him to resist the constant pressure of the furious waters. He was contending with a foe that could never grow weary. Often Enrico cried aloud for help, with a bitter consciousness of the improbability that such cry would reach a human ear, since he had never yet known any one come to the top of the cliff, less from the difficulty of reaching it, than from a superstition which clothed the Cascata della Morte with supernatural terrors. The forest path, indeed, was not far distant, but it was lonely and wild, and never trodden save by members of the band. It seemed to Enrico as if the din which perpetually roared in his ears completely drowned the sound of his voice. He could hardly hear it himself; how could it reach a distant ear?

The robber had become calmer, though not less wretched. His mind now reverted to the past. Each event of his life—every error—every sin—seemed to rise up before him distinct as the white spray in the moonlight, hissed in his ears with the roar of the fall. Had not his position for years been imaged by his position now? Carried away by his passions as by the flood, hurled over the brink of crime in full rapid career towards endless ruin, yet caught—suspended—restrained—as it were, by the prayers, entreaties, example, of one who remained amid the whirl, the rack, and the rush, yet unshaken and firm as the crag.

In that hour of extremest peril, the sinner's cry arose to his God. Raphael had spoken of mercy; might not that mercy be extended even unto him, not perhaps to save him from impending death, but from the more fearful death of the soul? Words that his brother had read from the Scriptures flashed back on the mind of Enrico:

"'He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.'"

The drowning soul clung to that truth, even as the numbed hands clung to the rock. Enrico knew the utter impossibility now of saving himself; he felt that he deserved no mercy from an offended God; but there was One who could save "to the uttermost," One who had died to save, One who could draw him yet out of the horrible pit, and set his feet on a rock, and order his goings.

While thus hanging, as it were, between earth and heaven, Enrico heard the call of Horace. He doubted not for a moment that the Almighty had sent his brother to his aid. When the rope of knotted strips was thrown down the cascade, it seemed to the poor penitent as an emblem of heavenly hope. Then sudden darkness hid it from his view, and in vain his hand groped in the chill waters to find it. The gloom of despair seemed to settle on his soul. The cloud rolled away, and the straining eyes of Enrico beheld the rope once again. He sought to grasp it, and failed.

Was it that mercy, even the mercy held out to all contrite sinners, was not to be reached by him—that he who for so long had tried the patience of a long-suffering God, was to perish at last even in sight of the means of salvation?

"Raphael is praying, and I will hope," thought the struggling sufferer; and when Horace shouted down the direction to spring. "Raphael bids me, I obey," was the reflection which nerved him for the one desperate leap upon which he staked his existence.

Even when the rope was grasped, so great was the sufferer's exhaustion, so benumbed and stiffened were his fingers by the drenching of the flood, that he could scarcely retain his hold. Yet it was as though an angel whispered as he was dragged upwards through the dash and the foam, "Hold fast—hold fast the hope set before you!" It was not merely the action of a drowning man grasping a cord, but of a perishing soul clinging to its last hope of grace.

As soon as the fearful effort was crowned with success, exhausted nature gave way. In a stupor which must have had fatal consequences had it overwhelmed him two minutes earlier, Enrico lay with his dripping head supported on the knee of Horace Cleveland. The stupor continued for some time. At length the pale lips parted and sounds came forth. Horace bent down to listen, and caught the words,—

"Oh, Raphael, I knew it was your prayer!"

Then the large black eyes suddenly opened. They rested not on Horace, but looked wildly around, as if seeking some other face; and half raising himself on his arm, Enrico exclaimed:

"Where is he—where is my brother?"

Horace did not answer, for at that instant his attention was arrested by the sound of a distant report. He sprang to his feet—there came another—another—then the rattling sound of a volley, all in the direction of the high road.

"Ha!" exclaimed Horace Cleveland, "The hunters lay in wait for a deer, but they seem to have fallen in with a lion."

Then, for the first time, Enrico recognized his deliverer. "The prisoner, and free!" he exclaimed in accents of alarm.

"Ay, free—free as the air, and not likely to be soon in bondage again, if that sound of musketry, as I believe, tells that soldiers are at hand."

Enrico struggled to his feet, passed his hand across his brow, and listened with a look of bewilderment and fear.

"Enrico, you also are free—free from worse bondage than mine. Remember that the robbers will deem your life forfeited. Surrender yourself up to justice, and I pledge my honor that every effort shall be made to secure your safety and your pardon."

"Pardon!" Enrico repeated the word, clasped his hands and looked upwards;—he was not thinking of the pardon of man.