CHAPTER XVII

The Col of the Swallows

He pointed to the slip on the table.

“You have seen the orders?”

I nodded.

“The long day’s work is over. You must rejoice, for your part has been

the hardest, I think. Some day you will tell me about it?”

The man’s face was honest and kindly, rather like that of the engineer

Gaudian, whom two years before I had met in Germany. But his eyes

fascinated me, for they were the eyes of the dreamer and fanatic, who

would not desist from his quest while life lasted. I thought that Ivery

had chosen well in his colleague.

“My task is not done yet,” I said. “I came here to see Chelius.”

“He will be back tomorrow evening.”

“Too late. I must see him at once. He has gone to Italy, and I must

overtake him.”

“You know your duty best,” he said gravely.

“But you must help me. I must catch him at Santa Chiara, for it is a

business of life and death. Is there a car to be had?”

“There is mine. But there is no chauffeur. Chelius took him.”

“I can drive myself and I know the road. But I have no pass to cross

the frontier.”

“That is easily supplied,” he said, smiling.

In one bookcase there was a shelf of dummy books. He unlocked this and

revealed a small cupboard, whence he took a tin dispatch-box. From some

papers he selected one, which seemed to be already signed.

“Name?” he asked.

“Call me Hans Gruber of Brieg,” I said. “I travel to pick up my master,

who is in the timber trade.”

“And your return?”

“I will come back by my old road,” I said mysteriously; and if he knew

what I meant it was more than I did myself.

He completed the paper and handed it to me. “This will take you through

the frontier posts. And now for the car. The servants will be in bed,

for they have been preparing for a long journey, but I will myself show

it you. There is enough petrol on board to take you to Rome.”

He led me through the hall, unlocked the front door, and we crossed the

snowy lawn to the garage. The place was empty but for a great car,

which bore the marks of having come from the muddy lowlands. To my joy

I saw that it was a Daimler, a type with which I was familiar. I lit

the lamps, started the engine, and ran it out on to the road.

“You will want an overcoat,” he said.

“I never wear them.”

“Food?”

“I have some chocolate. I will breakfast at Santa Chiara.”

“Well, God go with you!”

A minute later I was tearing along the lake-side towards St Anton

village.

I stopped at the cottage on the hill. Peter was not yet in bed. I found

him sitting by the fire, trying to read, but I saw by his face that he

had been waiting anxiously on my coming.

“We’re in the soup, old man,” I said as I shut the door. In a dozen

sentences I told him of the night’s doings, of Ivery’s plan and my

desperate errand.

“You wanted a share,” I cried. “Well, everything depends on you now.

I’m off after Ivery, and God knows what will happen. Meantime, you have

got to get on to Blenkiron, and tell him what I’ve told you. He must

get the news through to G.H.Q. somehow. He must trap the Wild Birds

before they go. I don’t know how, but he must. Tell him it’s all up to

him and you, for I’m out of it. I must save Mary, and if God’s willing

I’ll settle with Ivery. But the big job is for Blenkiron—and you.

Somehow he has made a bad break, and the enemy has got ahead of him. He

must sweat blood to make up. My God, Peter, it’s the solemnest moment

of our lives. I don’t see any light, but we mustn’t miss any chances.

I’m leaving it all to you.”

I spoke like a man in a fever, for after what I had been through I

wasn’t quite sane. My coolness in the Pink Chalet had given place to a

crazy restlessness. I can see Peter yet, standing in the ring of

lamplight, supporting himself by a chair back, wrinkling his brows and,

as he always did in moments of excitement, scratching gently the tip of

his left ear. His face was happy.

“Never fear, Dick,” he said. “It will all come right. _Ons sal ’n plan

maak._”

And then, still possessed with a demon of disquiet, I was on the road

again, heading for the pass that led to Italy.

The mist had gone from the sky, and the stars were shining brightly.

The moon, now at the end of its first quarter, was setting in a gap of

the mountains, as I climbed the low col from the St Anton valley to the

greater Staubthal. There was frost and the hard snow crackled under my

wheels, but there was also that feel in the air which preludes storm. I

wondered if I should run into snow in the high hills. The whole land

was deep in peace. There was not a light in the hamlets I passed

through, not a soul on the highway.

In the Staubthal I joined the main road and swung to the left up the

narrowing bed of the valley. The road was in noble condition, and the

car was running finely, as I mounted through forests of snowy Pines to

a land where the mountains crept close together, and the highway coiled

round the angles of great crags or skirted perilously some profound

gorge, with only a line of wooden posts to defend it from the void. In

places the snow stood in walls on either side, where the road was kept

open by man’s labour. In other parts it lay thin, and in the dim light

one might have fancied that one was running through open meadowlands.

Slowly my head was getting clearer, and I was able to look round my

problem. I banished from my mind the situation I had left behind me.

Blenkiron must cope with that as best he could. It lay with him to deal

with the Wild Birds, my job was with Ivery alone. Sometime in the early

morning he would reach Santa Chiara, and there he would find Mary.

Beyond that my imagination could forecast nothing. She would be alone—I

could trust his cleverness for that; he would try to force her to come

with him, or he might persuade her with some lying story. Well, please

God, I should come in for the tail end of the interview, and at the

thought I cursed the steep gradients I was climbing, and longed for

some magic to lift the Daimler beyond the summit and set it racing down

the slope towards Italy.

I think it was about half-past three when I saw the lights of the

frontier post. The air seemed milder than in the valleys, and there was

a soft scurry of snow on my right cheek. A couple of sleepy Swiss

sentries with their rifles in their hands stumbled out as I drew up.

They took my pass into the hut and gave me an anxious quarter of an

hour while they examined it. The performance was repeated fifty yards

on at the Italian post, where to my alarm the sentries were inclined to

conversation. I played the part of the sulky servant, answering in

monosyllables and pretending to immense stupidity.

“You are only just in time, friend,” said one in German. “The weather

grows bad and soon the pass will close. Ugh, it is as cold as last

winter on the Tonale. You remember, Giuseppe?”

But in the end they let me move on. For a little I felt my way

gingerly, for on the summit the road had many twists and the snow was

confusing to the eyes. Presently came a sharp drop and I let the

Daimler go. It grew colder, and I shivered a little; the snow became a

wet white fog around the glowing arc of the headlights; and always the

road fell, now in long curves, now in steep short dips, till I was

aware of a glen opening towards the south. From long living in the

wilds I have a kind of sense for landscape without the testimony of the

eyes, and I knew where the ravine narrowed or widened though it was

black darkness.

In spite of my restlessness I had to go slowly, for after the first

rush downhill I realised that, unless I was careful, I might wreck the

car and spoil everything. The surface of the road on the southern slope

of the mountains was a thousand per cent worse than that on the other.

I skidded and side-slipped, and once grazed the edge of the gorge. It

was far more maddening than the climb up, for then it had been a

straight-forward grind with the Daimler doing its utmost, whereas now I

had to hold her back because of my own lack of skill. I reckon that

time crawling down from the summit of the Staub as some of the weariest

hours I ever spent.

Quite suddenly I ran out of the ill weather into a different climate.

The sky was clear above me, and I saw that dawn was very near. The

first pinewoods were beginning, and at last came a straight slope where

I could let the car out. I began to recover my spirits, which had been

very dashed, and to reckon the distance I had still to travel.... And

then, without warning, a new world sprang up around me. Out of the blue

dusk white shapes rose like ghosts, peaks and needles and domes of ice,

their bases fading mistily into shadow, but the tops kindling till they

glowed like jewels. I had never seen such a sight, and the wonder of it

for a moment drove anxiety from my heart. More, it gave me an earnest

of victory. I was in clear air once more, and surely in this diamond

ether the foul things which loved the dark must be worsted....

And then I saw, a mile ahead, the little square red-roofed building

which I knew to be the inn of Santa Chiara.

It was here that misfortune met me. I had grown careless now, and

looked rather at the house than the road. At one point the hillside had

slipped down—it must have been recent, for the road was well kept—and I

did not notice the landslide till I was on it. I slewed to the right,

took too wide a curve, and before I knew the car was over the far edge.

I slapped on the brakes, but to avoid turning turtle I had to leave the

road altogether. I slithered down a steep bank into a meadow, where for

my sins I ran into a fallen tree trunk with a jar that shook me out of

my seat and nearly broke my arm. Before I examined the car I knew what

had happened. The front axle was bent, and the off front wheel badly

buckled.

I had not time to curse my stupidity. I clambered back to the road and

set off running down it at my best speed. I was mortally stiff, for

Ivery’s rack was not good for the joints, but I realised it only as a

drag on my pace, not as an affliction in itself. My whole mind was set

on the house before me and what might be happening there.

There was a man at the door of the inn, who, when he caught sight of my

figure, began to move to meet me. I saw that it was Launcelot Wake, and

the sight gave me hope.

But his face frightened me. It was drawn and haggard like one who never

sleeps, and his eyes were hot coals.

“Hannay,” he cried, “for God’s sake what does it mean?”

“Where is Mary?” I gasped, and I remember I clutched at a lapel of his

coat.

He pulled me to the low stone wall by the roadside.

“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “We got your orders to come here this

morning. We were at Chiavagno, where Blenkiron told us to wait. But

last night Mary disappeared.... I found she had hired a carriage and

come on ahead. I followed at once, and reached here an hour ago to find

her gone.... The woman who keeps the place is away and there are only

two old servants left. They tell me that Mary came here late, and that

very early in the morning a closed car came over the Staub with a man

in it. They say he asked to see the young lady, and that they talked

together for some time, and that then she went off with him in the car

down the valley.... I must have passed it on my way up.... There’s been

some black devilment that I can’t follow. Who was the man? Who was the

man?”

He looked as if he wanted to throttle me.

“I can tell you that,” I said. “It was Ivery.”

He stared for a second as if he didn’t understand. Then he leaped to

his feet and cursed like a trooper. “You’ve botched it, as I knew you

would. I knew no good would come of your infernal subtleties.” And he

consigned me and Blenkiron and the British army and Ivery and everybody

else to the devil.

I was past being angry. “Sit down, man,” I said, “and listen to me.” I

told him of what had happened at the Pink Chalet. He heard me out with

his head in his hands. The thing was too bad for cursing.

“The Underground Railway!” he groaned. “The thought of it drives me

mad. Why are you so calm, Hannay? She’s in the hands of the cleverest

devil in the world, and you take it quietly. You should be a raving

lunatic.”

“I would be if it were any use, but I did all my raving last night in

that den of Ivery’s. We’ve got to pull ourselves together, Wake. First

of all, I trust Mary to the other side of eternity. She went with him

of her own free will. I don’t know why, but she must have had a reason,

and be sure it was a good one, for she’s far cleverer than you or

me.... We’ve got to follow her somehow. Ivery’s bound for Germany, but

his route is by the Pink Chalet, for he hopes to pick me up there. He

went down the valley; therefore he is going to Switzerland by the

Marjolana. That is a long circuit and will take him most of the day.

Why he chose that way I don’t know, but there it is. We’ve got to get

back by the Staub.”

“How did you come?” he asked.

“That’s our damnable luck. I came in a first-class six-cylinder

Daimler, which is now lying a wreck in a meadow a mile up the road.

We’ve got to foot it.”

“We can’t do it. It would take too long. Besides, there’s the frontier

to pass.”

I remembered ruefully that I might have got a return passport from the

Portuguese Jew, if I had thought of anything at the time beyond getting

to Santa Chiara.

“Then we must make a circuit by the hillside and dodge the guards. It’s

no use making difficulties, Wake. We’re fairly up against it, but we’ve

got to go on trying till we drop. Otherwise I’ll take your advice and

go mad.”

“And supposing you get back to St Anton, you’ll find the house shut up

and the travellers gone hours before by the Underground Railway.”

“Very likely. But, man, there’s always the glimmering of a chance. It’s

no good chucking in your hand till the game’s out.”

“Drop your proverbial philosophy, Mr Martin Tupper, and look up there.”

He had one foot on the wall and was staring at a cleft in the snow-line

across the valley. The shoulder of a high peak dropped sharply to a

kind of nick and rose again in a long graceful curve of snow. All below

the nick was still in deep shadow, but from the configuration of the

slopes I judged that a tributary glacier ran from it to the main

glacier at the river head.

“That’s the Colle delle Rondini,” he said, “the Col of the Swallows. It

leads straight to the Staubthal near Grünewald. On a good day I have

done it in seven hours, but it’s not a pass for winter-time. It has

been done of course, but not often.... Yet, if the weather held, it

might go even now, and that would bring us to St Anton by the evening.

I wonder”—and he looked me over with an appraising eye—“I wonder if

you’re up to it.”

My stiffness had gone and I burned to set my restlessness to physical

toil.

“If you can do it, I can,” I said.

“No. There you’re wrong. You’re a hefty fellow, but you’re no

mountaineer, and the ice of the Colle delle Rondini needs knowledge. It

would be insane to risk it with a novice, if there were any other way.

But I’m damned if I see any, and I’m going to chance it. We can get a

rope and axes in the inn. Are you game?”

“Right you are. Seven hours, you say. We’ve got to do it in six.”

“You will be humbler when you get on the ice,” he said grimly. “We’d

better breakfast, for the Lord knows when we shall see food again.”

We left the inn at five minutes to nine, with the sky cloudless and a

stiff wind from the north-west, which we felt even in the deep-cut

valley. Wake walked with a long, slow stride that tried my patience. I

wanted to hustle, but he bade me keep in step. “You take your orders

from me, for I’ve been at this job before. Discipline in the ranks,

remember.”

We crossed the river gorge by a plank bridge, and worked our way up the

right bank, past the moraine, to the snout of the glacier. It was bad

going, for the snow concealed the boulders, and I often floundered in

holes. Wake never relaxed his stride, but now and then he stopped to

sniff the air.

I observed that the weather looked good, and he differed. “It’s too

clear. There’ll be a full-blown gale on the Col and most likely snow in

the afternoon.” He pointed to a fat yellow cloud that was beginning to

bulge over the nearest peak. After that I thought he lengthened his

stride.

“Lucky I had these boots resoled and nailed at Chiavagno,” was the only

other remark he made till we had passed the _seracs_ of the main

glacier and turned up the lesser ice-stream from the Colle delle

Rondini.

By half-past ten we were near its head, and I could see clearly the

ribbon of pure ice between black crags too steep for snow to lie on,

which was the means of ascent to the Col. The sky had clouded over, and

ugly streamers floated on the high slopes. We tied on the rope at the

foot of the _bergschrund_, which was easy to pass because of the

winter’s snow. Wake led, of course, and presently we came on to the

icefall.

In my time I had done a lot of scrambling on rocks and used to promise

myself a season in the Alps to test myself on the big peaks. If I ever

go it will be to climb the honest rock towers around Chamonix, for I

won’t have anything to do with snow mountains. That day on the Colle

delle Rondini fairly sickened me of ice. I daresay I might have liked

it if I had done it in a holiday mood, at leisure and in good spirits.

But to crawl up that couloir with a sick heart and a desperate impulse

to hurry was the worst sort of nightmare. The place was as steep as a

wall of smooth black ice that seemed hard as granite. Wake did the

step-cutting, and I admired him enormously. He did not seem to use much

force, but every step was hewn cleanly the right size, and they were

spaced the right distance. In this job he was the true professional. I

was thankful Blenkiron was not with us, for the thing would have given

a squirrel vertigo. The chips of ice slithered between my legs and I

could watch them till they brought up just above the _bergschrund_.

The ice was in shadow and it was bitterly cold. As we crawled up I had

not the exercise of using the axe to warm me, and I got very numb

standing on one leg waiting for the next step. Worse still, my legs

began to cramp. I was in good condition, but that time under Ivery’s

rack had played the mischief with my limbs. Muscles got out of place in

my calves and stood in aching lumps, till I almost squealed with the

pain of it. I was mortally afraid I should slip, and every time I moved

I called out to Wake to warn him. He saw what was happening and got the

pick of his axe fixed in the ice before I was allowed to stir. He spoke

often to cheer me up, and his voice had none of its harshness. He was

like some ill-tempered generals I have known, very gentle in a battle.

At the end the snow began to fall, a soft powder like the overspill of

a storm raging beyond the crest. It was just after that that Wake cried

out that in five minutes we would be at the summit. He consulted his

wrist-watch. “Jolly good time, too. Only twenty-five minutes behind my

best. It’s not one o’clock.”

The next I knew I was lying flat on a pad of snow easing my cramped

legs, while Wake shouted in my ear that we were in for something bad. I

was aware of a driving blizzard, but I had no thought of anything but

the blessed relief from pain. I lay for some minutes on my back with my

legs stiff in the air and the toes turned inwards, while my muscles

fell into their proper place.

It was certainly no spot to linger in. We looked down into a trough of

driving mist, which sometimes swirled aside and showed a knuckle of

black rock far below. We ate some chocolate, while Wake shouted in my

ear that now we had less step-cutting. He did his best to cheer me, but

he could not hide his anxiety. Our faces were frosted over like a

wedding-cake and the sting of the wind was like a whiplash on our

eyelids.

The first part was easy, down a slope of firm snow where steps were not

needed. Then came ice again, and we had to cut into it below the fresh

surface snow. This was so laborious that Wake took to the rocks on the

right side of the couloir, where there was some shelter from the main

force of the blast. I found it easier, for I knew something about

rocks, but it was difficult enough with every handhold and foothold

glazed. Presently we were driven back again to the ice, and painfully

cut our way through a throat of the ravine where the sides narrowed.

There the wind was terrible, for the narrows made a kind of funnel, and

we descended, plastered against the wall, and scarcely able to breathe,

while the tornado plucked at our bodies as if it would whisk us like

wisps of grass into the abyss.

After that the gorge widened and we had an easier slope, till suddenly

we found ourselves perched on a great tongue of rock round which the

snow blew like the froth in a whirlpool. As we stopped for breath, Wake

shouted in my ear that this was the Black Stone.

“The what?” I yelled.

“The Schwarzstein. The Swiss call the pass the Schwarzsteinthor. You

can see it from Grünewald.”

I suppose every man has a tinge of superstition in him. To hear that

name in that ferocious place gave me a sudden access of confidence. I

seemed to see all my doings as part of a great predestined plan. Surely

it was not for nothing that the word which had been the key of my first

adventure in the long tussle should appear in this last phase. I felt

new strength in my legs and more vigour in my lungs. “A good omen,” I

shouted. “Wake, old man, we’re going to win out.”

“The worst is still to come,” he said.

He was right. To get down that tongue of rock to the lower snows of the

couloir was a job that fairly brought us to the end of our tether. I

can feel yet the sour, bleak smell of wet rock and ice and the hard

nerve pain that racked my forehead. The Kaffirs used to say that there

were devils in the high berg, and this place was assuredly given over

to the powers of the air who had no thought of human life. I seemed to

be in the world which had endured from the eternity before man was

dreamed of. There was no mercy in it, and the elements were pitting

their immortal strength against two pigmies who had profaned their

sanctuary. I yearned for warmth, for the glow of a fire, for a tree or

blade of grass or anything which meant the sheltered homeliness of

mortality. I knew then what the Greeks meant by panic, for I was scared

by the apathy of nature. But the terror gave me a kind of comfort, too.

Ivery and his doings seemed less formidable. Let me but get out of this

cold hell and I could meet him with a new confidence.

Wake led, for he knew the road and the road wanted knowing. Otherwise

he should have been last on the rope, for that is the place of the

better man in a descent. I had some horrible moments following on when

the rope grew taut, for I had no help from it. We zigzagged down the

rock, sometimes driven to the ice of the adjacent couloirs, sometimes

on the outer ridge of the Black Stone, sometimes wriggling down little

cracks and over evil boiler-plates. The snow did not lie on it, but the

rock crackled with thin ice or oozed ice water. Often it was only by

the grace of God that I did not fall headlong, and pull Wake out of his

hold to the _bergschrund_ far below. I slipped more than once, but

always by a miracle recovered myself. To make things worse, Wake was

tiring. I could feel him drag on the rope, and his movements had not

the precision they had had in the morning. He was the mountaineer, and

I the novice. If he gave out, we should never reach the valley.

The fellow was clear grit all through. When we reached the foot of the

tooth and sat huddled up with our faces away from the wind, I saw that

he was on the edge of fainting. What that effort must have cost him in

the way of resolution you may guess, but he did not fail till the worst

was past. His lips were colourless, and he was choking with the nausea

of fatigue. I found a flask of brandy in his pocket, and a mouthful

revived him.

“I’m all out,” he said. “The road’s easier now, and I can direct you

about the rest.... You’d better leave me. I’ll only be a drag. I’ll

come on when I feel better.”

“No, you don’t, you old fool. You’ve got me over that infernal iceberg,

and I’m going to see you home.”

I rubbed his arms and legs and made him swallow some chocolate. But

when he got on his feet he was as doddery as an old man. Happily we had

an easy course down a snow gradient, which we glissaded in very

unorthodox style. The swift motion freshened him up a little, and he

was able to put on the brake with his axe to prevent us cascading into

the _bergschrund_. We crossed it by a snow bridge, and started out on

the _seracs_ of the Schwarzstein glacier.

I am no mountaineer—not of the snow and ice kind, anyway—but I have a

big share of physical strength and I wanted it all now. For those

_seracs_ were an invention of the devil. To traverse that labyrinth in

a blinding snowstorm, with a fainting companion who was too weak to

jump the narrowest crevasse, and who hung on the rope like lead when

there was occasion to use it, was more than I could manage. Besides,

every step that brought us nearer to the valley now increased my

eagerness to hurry, and wandering in that maze of clotted ice was like

the nightmare when you stand on the rails with the express coming and

are too weak to climb on the platform. As soon as possible I left the

glacier for the hillside, and though that was laborious enough in all

conscience, yet it enabled me to steer a straight course. Wake never

spoke a word. When I looked at him his face was ashen under a gale

which should have made his cheeks glow, and he kept his eyes half

closed. He was staggering on at the very limits of his endurance....

By and by we were on the moraine, and after splashing through a dozen

little glacier streams came on a track which led up the hillside. Wake

nodded feebly when I asked if this was right. Then to my joy I saw a

gnarled pine.

I untied the rope and Wake dropped like a log on the ground. “Leave

me,” he groaned. “I’m fairly done. I’ll come on later.” And he shut his

eyes.

My watch told me that it was after five o’clock.

“Get on my back,” I said. “I won’t part from you till I’ve found a

cottage. You’re a hero. You’ve brought me over those damned mountains

in a blizzard, and that’s what no other man in England would have done.

Get up.”

He obeyed, for he was too far gone to argue. I tied his wrists together

with a handkerchief below my chin, for I wanted my arms to hold up his

legs. The rope and axes I left in a cache beneath the pine-tree. Then I

started trotting down the track for the nearest dwelling.

My strength felt inexhaustible and the quicksilver in my bones drove me

forward. The snow was still falling, but the wind was dying down, and

after the inferno of the pass it was like summer. The road wound over

the shale of the hillside and then into what in spring must have been

upland meadows. Then it ran among trees, and far below me on the right

I could hear the glacier river churning in its gorge. Soon little empty

huts appeared, and rough enclosed paddocks, and presently I came out on

a shelf above the stream and smelt the wood-smoke of a human

habitation.

I found a middle-aged peasant in the cottage, a guide by profession in

summer and a woodcutter in winter.

“I have brought my Herr from Santa Chiara,” I said, “over the

Schwarzsteinthor. He is very weary and must sleep.”

I decanted Wake into a chair, and his head nodded on his chest. But his

colour was better.

“You and your Herr are fools,” said the man gruffly, but not unkindly.

“He must sleep or he will have a fever. The Schwarzsteinthor in this

devil’s weather! Is he English?”

“Yes,” I said, “like all madmen. But he’s a good Herr, and a brave

mountaineer.”

We stripped Wake of his Red Cross uniform, now a collection of sopping

rags, and got him between blankets with a huge earthenware bottle of

hot water at his feet. The woodcutter’s wife boiled milk, and this,

with a little brandy added, we made him drink. I was quite easy in my

mind about him, for I had seen this condition before. In the morning he

would be as stiff as a poker, but recovered.

“Now I’m off for St Anton,” I said. “I must get there tonight.”

“You are the hardy one,” the man laughed. “I will show you the quick

road to Grünewald, where is the railway. With good fortune you may get

the last train.”

I gave him fifty francs on my Herr’s behalf, learned his directions for

the road, and set off after a draught of goat’s milk, munching my last

slab of chocolate. I was still strung up to a mechanical activity, and

I ran every inch of the three miles to the Staubthal without

consciousness of fatigue. I was twenty minutes too soon for the train,

and, as I sat on a bench on the platform, my energy suddenly ebbed

away. That is what happens after a great exertion. I longed to sleep,

and when the train arrived I crawled into a carriage like a man with a

stroke. There seemed to be no force left in my limbs. I realised that I

was leg-weary, which is a thing you see sometimes with horses, but not

often with men.

All the journey I lay like a log in a kind of coma, and it was with

difficulty that I recognised my destination, and stumbled out of the

train. But I had no sooner emerged from the station of St Anton than I

got my second wind. Much snow had fallen since yesterday, but it had

stopped now, the sky was clear, and the moon was riding. The sight of

the familiar place brought back all my anxieties. The day on the Col of

the Swallows was wiped out of my memory, and I saw only the inn at

Santa Chiara, and heard Wake’s hoarse voice speaking of Mary. The

lights were twinkling from the village below, and on the right I saw

the clump of trees which held the Pink Chalet.

I took a short cut across the fields, avoiding the little town. I ran

hard, stumbling often, for though I had got my mental energy back my

legs were still precarious. The station clock had told me that it was

nearly half-past nine.

Soon I was on the high-road, and then at the Chalet gates. I heard as

in a dream what seemed to be three shrill blasts on a whistle. Then a

big car passed me, making for St Anton. For a second I would have

hailed it, but it was past me and away. But I had a conviction that my

business lay in the house, for I thought Ivery was there, and Ivery was

what mattered.

I marched up the drive with no sort of plan in my head, only a blind

rushing on fate. I remembered dimly that I had still three cartridges

in my revolver.

The front door stood open and I entered and tiptoed down the passage to

the room where I had found the Portuguese Jew. No one hindered me, but

it was not for lack of servants. I had the impression that there were

people near me in the darkness, and I thought I heard German softly

spoken. There was someone ahead of me, perhaps the speaker, for I could

hear careful footsteps. It was very dark, but a ray of light came from

below the door of the room. Then behind me I heard the hall door clang,

and the noise of a key turned in its lock. I had walked straight into a

trap and all retreat was cut off.

My mind was beginning to work more clearly, though my purpose was still

vague. I wanted to get at Ivery and I believed that he was somewhere in

front of me. And then I thought of the door which led from the chamber

where I had been imprisoned. If I could enter that way I would have the

advantage of surprise.

I groped on the right-hand side of the passage and found a handle. It

opened upon what seemed to be a dining-room, for there was a faint

smell of food. Again I had the impression of people near, who for some

unknown reason did not molest me. At the far end I found another door,

which led to a second room, which I guessed to be adjacent to the

library. Beyond it again must lie the passage from the chamber with the

rack. The whole place was as quiet as a shell.

I had guessed right. I was standing in the passage where I had stood

the night before. In front of me was the library, and there was the

same chink of light showing. Very softly I turned the handle and opened

it a crack....

The first thing that caught my eye was the profile of Ivery. He was

looking towards the writing-table, where someone was sitting.