Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
Читать онлайн книгу.
sure that myriads of venomous beasts did not swarm in the herbage of this humid excavation.
In the middle of the ditch, and parallel to the wall, was the ancient trench, now nearly dry, which they could just stride across.
Nic Deck, having lost nothing of his mental or bodily energy, went on coolly and quietly, while the doctor followed him mechanically, like an animal at the end of a string.
After crossing the trench, the forester went along the base of the curtain for some twenty yards, and stopped underneath the gate close to one end of the chain of the drawbridge. By the help of his hands and feet he could thence easily reach the line of stonework that jutted out just below the embrasure.
Evidently Nic did not intend to compel the doctor to take part with him in this escalade. So heavy a man could not have clone so. He therefore contented himself with giving him a vigorous shake to make him understand, and then advised him to wait without moving at the bottom of the ditch.
Then Nic Deck commenced to climb the chain; and this was merely child’s play for his mountaineer’s muscles.
But when the doctor found himself alone, the true position of things, to a certain extent, recurred to him. He understood, he looked, he saw his companion already suspended a dozen feet from the ground, and in a voice choking with the bitterness of fear, he cried,—
“Stop—Nic—stop!”
The forester heard him not.
“Come—come—or I will go away!” cried the doctor.
“Go, then,” said Nic.
And he continued to raise himself along the chain of the drawbridge.
Doctor Patak, in a paroxysm of terror, would have gone back again up the slope of the counterscarp, so as to reach the crest of the Orgall plateau and return full speed to Werst.
But—prodigy to which the wonders of the preceding night were as nothing—he could not move. His feet were held fast as if they had been seized in the jaws of a vice. Could he place one before the other? No. They stuck by the heels and soles of his boots. Had the doctor been taken in a trap? He was too much frightened to look, but it seemed as though he was held by the nails in his boots.
Whatever it was, the poor man was immovable. He was fixed to the ground. Not having strength to cry out, he stretched out his hands in despair. It looked as though he sought to be rescued from the embrace of some tarask hidden in the bowels of the earth.
Meanwhile Nic Deck had got as high as the postern, and was placing his hand on the ironwork in which the hinges of the drawbridge were embedded.
A cry of pain escaped him; then throwing himself back, as if he had been struck by lightning, he slipped along the chain, which a final instinct made him clutch, and rolled to the bottom of the ditch.
“The voice truly said that misfortune would come to me,” he murmured, and then he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER VII.
How can we describe the anxiety to which the village of Werst had been a prey since the departure of the young forester and Doctor Patak? And it had constantly increased as the hours elapsed, and seemed interminable.
Master Koltz, the innkeeper Jonas, Magister Hermod, and a few others had remained all the time on the terrace, each of them keeping a constant watch on the distant castle to see if any wreath of smoke appeared over the donjon. No smoke showed itself—as was ascertained by means of the telescope, which was incessantly brought to bear in that direction. Assuredly the two florins sunk in the acquisition of that instrument had been well invested. Never had the biro, although so much interested in the matter, betrayed the slightest regret at so opportune an expenditure.
At half-past twelve, when the shepherd Frik returned from the pasture, he was eagerly interrogated. Was there anything new, anything extraordinary, anything supernatural?
Frik replied that he had just come along the valley of the Wallachian Syl without seeing anything suspicious.
After dinner, about two o’clock, the people went back to their post of observation. No one dreamt of remaining at home, and no one would certainly have dreamt of setting foot within the grand saloon of the “King Mathias,” where comminatory voices made themselves heard. That walls have ears is all very well, it is a popular proverb but a mouth!
And so the worthy innkeeper might well fear that his inn had been put into quarantine, and consequently his anxiety was extreme. Would he have to shut up shop, and drink his own stock for want of customers? And with a view of restoring confidence among the people of Werst, he had undertaken a lengthy search throughout the “King Mathias:” he had searched the rooms, under the beds, explored the cupboards and the sideboard, and every corner of he large saloon, the cellar, and the store-room, from which any ill-disposed practical joker might have worked the mystification.
Nothing could he find, not even along the side of the house overlooking the Nyad. The windows were too high for it to be possible for anyone to climb to them along a perpendicular wall, the foundation of which went sheer down into the impetuous torrent. It mattered not! Fear does not reason, and considerable time would doubtless elapse before Jonas’s habitual guests would return to their confidence in his inn, his schnapps, and his rakiou.
Considerable time? That is a mistake, and, as we shall see, this gloomy prognostic was never realized.
In fact, a few days later, in a quite unexpected way, the village notables were to resume their daily conferences, varied with refreshments, in the saloon of the “King Mathias.”
But we must first return to the young forester and his companion, Doctor Patak.
It will be remembered that when he left Werst, Nic Deck had promised the disconsolate Miriota that he would make his visit to the Castle of the Carpathians as brief as possible. If no harm happened to him, if the threats fulminated against him were not realized, he expected to get back early in the evening. He was therefore waited for, and with what impatience! Neither the girl, nor her father, nor the schoolmaster could foresee that the difficulties of the road would prevent the forester from reaching the crest of the Orgall plateau before nightfall.
And, in consequence, the anxiety, which had been intense during the day, exceeded all bounds when eight o’clock struck in the Vulkan clock, which could be heard distinctly at Werst. What could have happened to prevent both Nic and the doctor from returning after a day’s absence? Nobody thought of going home before they came back. Every minute they were seen in imagination corning round some turning in the road or along some gap in the hills.
Master Koltz and his daughter had gone to the end of the road, where the shepherd had been placed on the look out. Many times they thought they saw somebody in the distance through the clearings among the trees. A pure illusion! The hillside was deserted, as usual, for it was not often that the frontier folk ventured there at night. And it was Thursday evening—the Thursday of evil spirits—and on that day the Transylvanian never willingly stirs abroad after sundown. It seemed that Nic Deck must have been mad to have chosen such a day for his visit to the castle; the truth being that the young forester had not given it a thought, as indeed had no one else in the village.
But Miriota was thinking a good deal about it now. And what terrible imaginings occurred to her! In imagination she had followed her lover hour by hour, through the thick forests of the Plesa as he made his way up to the Orgall plateau. And now that night had come she seemed to see him within the wall, endeavouring to escape from the spirits which haunted the Castle of the Carpathians. He had become the sport of their malevolence. He was the victim devoted to their vengeance. He was imprisoned in the depths of some subterranean gaol—dead, perhaps.
Poor girl, what would she not have given to throw herself on