Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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and a good bed in a good room, and you are going to pass the night in the open air?”
“Yes! if any obstacle prevents us from penetrating into the castle.”
“And if there is no obstacle?”
“We will sleep in the rooms in the donjon.”
“The rooms in the donjon!” exclaimed Doctor Patak. “Do you think, forester, that I shall ever consent to spend a whole night inside that cursed castle?”
“Certainly, unless you prefer to stay outside alone.”
“Alone, forester! That was not in the bargain; and if we are to separate, I would rather start at once and go back to the village.”
“It was in the bargain that you would follow me into the castle.”
“In the day, yes! In the night, no!”
“Well, you can go if you like; but take care you do not get lost in the thickets.”
Lost! That was what troubled the doctor. Abandoned to himself, unaccustomed to these interminable circuits in the Plesa forests, he felt he was incapable of finding the way back to Werst. Besides, to be alone when night fell—a very dark night, perhaps—to descend the slopes of the hill at the risk of collapsing in the bottom of a ravine, that certainly was not agreeable to him. He was freed from having to enter the castle when the sun was down, and if the forester persisted, he had better follow him up to the enclosure. But the doctor made a last effort to stop his companion.
“You know well, my dear Nic,” he continued, “that I will never consent to separate from you. If you persist in going to the castle, I will not allow you to go there alone.”
“Well spoken, Doctor Patak, and I think you ought to stick to that.”
“No! One word more, Nic. If it is night when we arrive, promise me not to try and enter the castle.”
“What I promise you, doctor, is not to go back one footstep until I have discovered what is going on there.”
“What is going on there, forester!” said Doctor Patak, shrugging his shoulders. “But what do you want to go on there?”
“I know nothing, and as I have made up my mind to know, I will know.”
“But shall we ever reach this devil’s castle?” asked the doctor, whose arguments were exhausted. “To judge by the difficulty we have had up to now, and the time it has taken us to get through the Plesa forests, the day will end before we are in sight of the wall.”
“I do not think so,” said Nic Deck. “In the higher ranges the pines have no such thickets as do the elms or maples or beeches.”
“But the ground is rough.”
“What does that matter, if it is not impracticable?”
“But I believe that bears are met with on the outskirts of the plateau.”
“I have my gun, and you have your pistol to defend yourself with, doctor.”
“But if night falls we may be lost in the darkness.”
“No; for we now have a guide, which guide will, I hope, not leave us any more.”
“A guide?” exclaimed the doctor. And he rose abruptly to cast an anxious look around him.
“Yes,” said Nic, “and this guide is the Nyad. We have only to go up the right bank to reach the very crest of the plateau where it takes its source. I think we shall be at the castle gate in two hours, if we get on the road without delay.”
“In two hours if not in six!” replied the doctor.
“Are you ready?”
“Already? Nic, already? Why, our halt has only lasted a few minutes—”
“A few minutes which make a good half-hour. For the last time, are you ready? “
“Ready—when my legs are like lumps of lead? You know well enough, Nic Deck, my legs are not forester’s legs. My feet are swollen in my boots, and it is cruel to make me follow you—”
“Ah! You annoy me, Patak! You can go back alone if you like! Pleasant journey to you!”
And Nic rose.
“For the love of God, forester,” cried Doctor Patak, “listen to me.”
“Listen to your foolery?”
“It is already late, why not remain here? why not encamp under the shelter of these trees? We can start at daylight, and have all the morning to reach the plateau.”
“Doctor,” replied Nic Deck, “I tell you again it is my intention to spend the night in the castle.”
“No!” cried the doctor.; “no, you shall not do it, Nic! I will stop you—”
“You?”
“I will cling to you! I will drag you back! I will thrash you, if necessary!”
The unfortunate doctor did not know what he was saying.
As to Nic Deck, he did not even reply. Putting his arm through the gun-strap, he started to go up the Nyad.
“Wait—wait!” cried the doctor piteously. “What a fiend of a man! One moment! My limbs are stiff, my joints will not work.”
But they soon had to work, for the doctor had to trot along on his little legs to catch up the forester, who never looked back.
It was four o’clock. The solar rays just tipped the crest of Plesa, which intercepted them, and by an oblique reflection lighted up the higher branches of the pine-forest. Nic Deck had cause to hurry, for the woods below were growing dark at the decline of day.
Of a different character were the higher forests, which consisted mainly of the commoner Alpine species. Instead of being deformed and twisted and gnarled, the stems were straight and upright and far apart, and bare of branches for fifty or sixty feet from their roots, and then their evergreen verdure spread out like a roof. There was little brushwood or entanglement at their base; but the long roots crept along the ground as if they were snakes grown torpid with the cold. The ground was carpeted with close yellowish moss, scattered over with dry twigs, and dotted with cones which crackled under the feet. The slope was rough and furrowed with crystalline rocks, the sharp edges of which made themselves felt through the thickest leather. For a quarter of a mile the passage through the pine-wood was difficult. To climb these blocks required a suppleness, a vigour, and a sureness of foot which Doctor Patak could no longer claim. Nic Deck would have got through in an hour if he had been alone but it took him three with the hindrance of his companion, whom he had to stop to attend to, and to help over rocks too high for his little legs. The doctor had but one fear—a terrible fear—that of being left alone in these gloomy solitudes.
However, if the slopes became more painful to climb, the trees began to get thinner and thinner on the Plesa ridge. They were now in isolated clumps and of small size. Between these clumps could be seen the ranges of mountains in the background, with their outline still traceable in the evening mist.
The torrent of the Nyad, which the forester had continued to follow, was now not larger than a brook, and rose not so very far off. A few hundred feet above the last folds of the ground lay the rounded plateau of Orgall, crowned by the castle buildings.
Nic Deck at length reached the plateau after a final effort which reduced the doctor to the state of an inert mass. The poor man had not strength to drag himself twenty yards farther, and he fell like the ox before the axe of the butcher.
Nic Deck hardly felt the fatigue of this painful ascent. Erect, motionless, he devoured with his gaze this Castle of the Carpathians he had never before been so near.
Before his eyes lay a crenellated wall defended