Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  And they seated themselves in the lee of the crag, foregathering fraternally in the warm alpine sunshine.

  The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted as he sat down. After he had lighted his pipe he grunted again, screwed together his butterfly net and gazed hard through thick-lensed spectacles at Brown.

  “Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?” he inquired, still staring intently at the American.

  “I don’t know anything about them,” explained Brown. “What are Lepidoptera?”

  “The schmetterling — the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four varietal forms.” His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown’s costume to another — not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort of protruding and indifferent stare.

  His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment where the lump under Brown’s tunic indicated something concealed — a hunting knife, for example. Brown’s automatic was strapped there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless still, remained fixed for a second only, then travelled on toward the Ross rifle — the Athabasca Regiment having been permitted to exchange this beloved weapon for the British regulation piece recently issued to the Canadians. From behind the thick lenses of his spectacles the Herr Professor examined the rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued an entomological monologue for Brown’s edification. And all the while Von Glahn and Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were exchanging what appeared to be the frankest of confidences and the happiest of youthful reminiscences.

  “Of the Parnassians,” rumbled on Professor von Dresslin, “here in the Alps we possess one notable example — namely, the Parnassus Apollo. It is for the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently studied butterfly that I have, upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself equipped with net and suitable paraphernalia.”

  “I see,” nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin box and the net. The Herr Professor’s pop-eyed attention was now occupied with the service puttees worn by Brown. A sportsman also might have worn them, of course.

  “The Apollo butterfly,” droned on Professor Dresslin, “iss a butterfly of the larger magnitude among European Lepidoptera, yet not of the largest. The Parnassians, allied to the Papilionidæ, all live only in high altitudes, and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered red and plack ge-spotted wings, to be readily recognized. I haf already two specimens captured this morning. I haff the honour, sir, to exhibit them for your inspection — —”

  He fished out a flat green box from his pocket, opened it under Brown’s nose, leaning close enough to touch Brown with an exploring and furtive elbow — and felt the contour of the automatic.

  Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones Brown beheld, pinned side by side upon the cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously pretty butterflies.

  Their drooping and still pliable wings seemed as thin as white tissue paper; their bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red and black spots decorated the frail membrane of the wings in a curiously pleasing harmony of pattern and of colour.

  “Very unusual,” he said, with a vague idea he was saying the wrong thing.

  Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor von Dresslin continued: “I, the life history of the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early youth investigated with minuteness, diligence, and patience.” — His protuberant eyes were now fixed on Brown’s rifle again.— “For many years I haff bred this Apollo butterfly from the egg, from the caterpillar, from the chrysalis. I have the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf forms, the hybrid forms investigated under effery climatic condition. Notes sufficient for three volumes of quarto already exist as a residuum of my investigations — —”

  He looked up suddenly into the American’s face — which was the first sudden movement the Herr Professor had made ——

  “Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing. Here iss material for thirty! — A lifetime iss too short to know all the secrets of a single species.... If I may inquire, sir, of what pattern is your most interesting and admirable rifle?”

  “A — Ross,” said Brown, startled into a second’s hesitation.

  “So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality iss it, a R-r-ross?”

  “It’s a Canadian weapon. We Americans use it a great deal for big game.”

  “So?... And it iss also by the Canadian military employed perhaps, sir?”

  “I believe,” said Brown, carelessly, “that the British Government has taken away the Ross rifle from the Canadians and given them the regulation weapon.”

  “So? Permit — that I examine, sir?”

  Brown did not seem to hear him or notice the extended hand — blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.

  The Professor, not discouraged, repeated: “Sir, bitte darf ich, may I be permitted?” And Brown’s eyes flashed back a lightning shaft of inquiry. Then, carelessly smiling, he passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr Professor; and, at the same time, drew toward him that gentleman’s silver-mounted weapon, and carelessly cocked it.

  “Permit me,” he murmured, balancing it innocently in the hollow of his left arm, apparently preoccupied with admiration at the florid workmanship of stock and guard. No movement that the Herr Professor made escaped him; but presently he thought to himself— “The old dodo is absolutely unsuspicious. My nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes that Fritz has!”

  When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed back the weapon Brown laid the German sporting piece beside it with murmured complimentary comment.

  “Yess,” said the German, “such rifles kill when properly handled. We Germans may cordially recommend them for our American — friends—” Here was the slightest hesitation— “Pardon! I mean that we may safely guarantee this rifle to our friends.”

  Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses of the spectacles. The popeyes remained expressionless, utterly, Teutonically inscrutable. A big heather bee came buzzing among the alpenrosen. Its droning hum resembled the monotone of the Herr Professor.

  Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: “Do you remember our ambition to wear the laurels of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our notes at the lectures on the poets? And our ambition to write at least one deathless poem apiece before we died?”

  Von Glahn’s dark eyes narrowed with merriment and his gentle laugh and attractive voice sounded pleasantly in Brown’s ears.

  “You wrote at least one famous poem to Rosa,” he said, still laughing.

  “To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Café Luitpold! By Jove I did, didn’t I, Siurd? How on earth did you ever remember that?”

  “I thought it very pretty.” He began to repeat aloud:

  “Rosa with the winsome eyes,

  When my beer you bring to me;

  I can see through your disguise!

  I my goddess recognize —

  Hebe, young immortally,

  Sweet nepenthe pouring me!”

  Stent laughed outright:

  “How funny to think of it now — and to think of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do you forget that you also composed a most wonderful war-poem — to the metre of ‘Fly, Eagle, Fly!’ Do you remember how it began?

  “Slay, Eagle, Slay!

  They die who dare decry us!

  Red dawns ‘The Day.’

  The western cliffs defy us!

  Turn their grey flood

  To seas of blood!

  And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!

  For God has willed this German ‘Day’!”

  “Enough,” said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red. “What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven’s sake spare my modesty such accurate reminiscences.”

  “I thought it fine poetry — then,” insisted Stent with a forced smile. But his voice had subtly altered.

  They looked at each other in silence, the reminiscent smile still stamped upon their stiffening lips.

  For a brief moment the years had seemed to fa
de — time was not — the sunshine of that careless golden age had seemed to warm them once again there where they sat amid the alpenrosen below the snow line on the Col de la Reine.

  But it did not endure; everything concerning earth and heaven and life and death had so far remained unsaid between these two. And never would be said. Both understood that, perhaps.

  Then Von Glahn’s sidelong and preoccupied glance fell on Stent’s field glasses slung short around his neck. His rigid smile died out. Soldiers wore field glasses that way; hunters, when they carried them instead of spyglasses, wore them en bandoulière.

  He spoke, however, of other matters in his gentle, thoughtful voice — avoiding always any mention of politics and war — chatted on pleasantly with the familiarity and insouciance of old acquaintance. Once he turned slowly and looked at Brown — addressed him politely — while his dark eyes wandered over the American, noting every detail of dress and equipment, and the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the tunic.

  Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle, but discarded it carelessly, apparently not noticing that Stent and Brown always resumed their own weapons when he touched his.

  Brown said to Von Glahn:

  “Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My friend Stent tells me that you are old at it.”

  “I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown,” replied the young man modestly. “And — other game,” he added with a shrug.

  “I know how it’s done in theory,” continued the American; “and I am wondering whether we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow or whether we climb higher and lie in the snow up there.”

  “In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight — Mr. Brown.”

  There was an odd look in Siurd’s soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect — and instantly appearing to recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect English.

  “I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: ‘Ibex may be stirring, as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.’ My family,” he added apologetically, “come from the Traunwald; I forget and employ the vernacular at times.”

  The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he is drawing on the bowstring.

  Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end, anyway.

  They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.

  “Hirsch” grunted the Herr Professor— “und stück — on the north alm” — staring through his telescope intently.

  “Accorded,” said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the distant crags. “Stück on the western shoulder,” he added— “and a stag royal among them.”

  “Of ten?”

  “Of twelve.”

  After a silence: “Why are they galloping — I wonder — the herd-stag and stück?”

  Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent’s arm.

  “A geier, perhaps,” suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.

  “No ibex?” asked Stent in a voice a little forced.

  “Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok — high on the third peak — feeding.”

  “Accorded,” grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.

  His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying aside his own rifle again — and the German’s expression did not alter.

  “Ibex!” exclaimed Von Glahn softly.

  Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on the chasm’s mossy edge.

  “I don’t see your ibex, Siurd,” he said, still searching.

  “On the third peak, mon ami” — drawing Stent familiarly to his side — the lightest caressing contact — merely enough to verify the existence of the automatic under his old classmate’s tunic.

  If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it, watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken and alpenrosen a loppy winged butterfly — a large, whitish creature, seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown’s feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown’s head.

  The Herr Professor snatched up his net — struck heavily toward the winged thing — a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched together. Brown went down with a crash.

  At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn’s nervous arm. Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm’s awful edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn, rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight into the eyes of his old classmate — Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous depths — down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.

  After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still winging its erratic way where God willed it — a frail, dainty, translucent, wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf — symbol, perhaps of the soul already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.

  The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious American behind his back.

  “Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!” he grunted— “mit his pockets full of automatic clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd? — English and Yankee they are one in blood and one at heart — pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I told you already gesternabend? The British schwein are in Italy already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over mal!”

  But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.

  So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful, stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard something about something being “über alles” — God, perhaps, perhaps the blue sky overhead which covered him and his sickened friend alike, and the hurt enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above — and the dead man lying very, very far below them — where river and forest and moss and Parnassus were now alike to him.

  CHAPTER VI

  IN FINISTÈRE

  It was a dirty trick that they played Stent and Brown — the three Mysterious Sisters, Fate, Chance, and Destiny. But they’re always billed for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy; and there’s no use hissing them off: they’ll dog you from the stage entrance if they take a fancy to you.

  They dogged Wayland from the dock at Calais, where the mule transport landed, all the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperlé, and then, by stagecoach, to that little lost house on the moors, where ties held him most closely — where all he cared for in this world was gathered under a humble roof.

  In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting the week after his arrival. It was rather forcing his convalescence, but he believed it would accelerate it to go about in the open air, as though there were nothing the matter with his shattered leg.

  So he hobbled down to the point he knew so well. He had longed for the sea off Eryx. It thundered at his feet.

  And, now, all around him through clamorous obscurity a watery light glimmered; it edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from the sea; it outlined the long point of rocks thr
ust southward into the smoking smother.

  The din of the surf filled his ears; through flying patches of mist he caught glimpses of rollers bursting white against the reef; heard duller detonations along unseen sands, and shattering reports where heavy waves exploded among basalt rocks.

  His lean face of an invalid glistened with spray; salt water dripped from cap and coat, spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece, and ran down the varnished supports of both crutches where he leaned on them, braced forward against an ever-rising wind.

  At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of darker specks dotting the heaving flank of some huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks rose through the phantom light and came whirring in from the sea that his gun, poked stiffly skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then, sometimes, he hobbled back after the dead quarry while it still drove headlong inland, slanting earthward before the gale.

  Once, amid the endless thundering, in the turbulent desolation around him, through the roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch deadened sounds resembling distant seaward cannonading — real cannonading — as though individual shots, dully distinct, dominated for a few moments the unbroken uproar of surf and gale.

  He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent upon the sounds he ought to recognize — the sounds he knew so well.

  Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea assailed his ears.

  Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding through the fog; he breasted the wind, balanced heavily on both crutches and one leg, and shoved his gun upward.

  At the same instant the mist in front and overhead became noisy with wild fowl, rising in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring cloud. He hesitated; a muffled, thudding sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing louder, nearer, dominating the gale, increasing to a rattling clatter.

  Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up through the whirling mist ahead — an enormous shadow in the fog — a gigantic spectre rushing inland on vast and ghostly pinions.