Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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the magister.
“And easily done,” replied Franz. “Before forty-eight hours, if you like, the police will have settled up with whoever is hiding in the castle.”
“Except in the very probable case that they are spirits,” said the shepherd Frik.
“Even then,” said Franz, slightly shrugging his shoulders.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said Doctor Patak, “if you had accompanied me and Nic Deck, you might not talk about them as you do!”
“I should be astonished if I did not,” replied Franz, “even if, like you, I had been so strangely detained by the feet in the castle ditch.”
“By the feet—yes, count, or rather by the boots! Unless you suppose that in my state of mind I dreamt—”
“I suppose nothing,” said Franz, “and will not try to explain what appears inexplicable. But be assured that if the gendarmes come to visit the Castle of the Carpathians, their boots, which are accustomed to discipline, will not take root like yours.”
And with that parting shot at the doctor the count received for the last time the respects of the innkeeper of the “King Mathias”—so honoured to have had the honour of the honourable Franz de Télek, etc. After a salute to Master Koltz, Nic Deck, his betrothed, and the inhabitants in the road, he made a sign to Rotzko, and both set out at a good pace down the road.
In less than an hour Franz and his man had reached the right bank of the river which flowed round the southern base of Retyezat.
Rotzko had made up his mind to make no observation to his master; it would have been useless to have done so. Accustomed to obey him in military style, if the young count met with some perilous adventure he would know how to get him out of it.
After two hours’ walking Franz and Rotzko stopped for a short rest.
At this place the Wallachian Syl, which had been curving gently towards the right, approached the road by rather a sharp turn. On the other side was the Plesa and the Orgall plateau, at the distance of about a league. Franz then had to leave the Syl if he wished to cross the hill in the direction of the castle.
Evidently this roundabout way, chosen for the purpose of avoiding a return through Werst, must have doubled the distance which separated the castle from the village. Nevertheless it was still broad daylight when Franz and Rotzko reached the crest of the Orgall plateau. The young count would thus have time to see the castle from the outside. Then he could wait until evening before going back towards Werst, and it would be easy to follow the road without being seen. Franz’s intention was to pass the night at Livadzel, a little town situated at the confluence of the Syls, and to resume the road to Karlsburg in the morning.
The halt lasted half an hour. Franz, deep in his remembrances, much agitated at the thought that Baron de Gortz had perhaps concealed his existence in this castle, said not a word.
And Rotzko had to make a great effort to keep from saying to him,—
“It is useless to go further, master! Turn your back on this cursed castle and let us be off.”
They began to follow the thalweg of the valley; but first they had to cross a thicket in which there was no footpath. Patches of the ground had been deeply cut into, for in the rainy season the Syl frequently overflows, and flows in tumultuous torrents over the ground, which it converts into marsh. This caused some difficulty in the advance, and consequently some delay; and it took an hour to get back on the Vulkan road, which was reached about five o’clock.
The right flank of Plesa is not covered with the forest such as Nic Deck had to cut his way through with an axe; but its difficulties were of another kind. There were heaps of moraines, among which they could not venture with out caution; sudden changes of level, deep excavations, great blocks dangerously unsettled on their bases and standing up like the seracs of Alpine regions, all the confusion of the piles of enormous stones which avalanches had precipitated from the summit of the mountain-in fact, a veritable chaos in all its horror.
To climb a slope like this took a good hour’s hard work. It seemed indeed that the Castle of the Carpathians was sufficiently defended by the impracticability of its approaches. And perhaps Rotzko hoped that there would be obstacles it would be impossible to surmount, although there were none.
Beyond the zone of blocks and hollows, the outer crest of the Orgall plateau was eventually reached. From there the outline of the castle was clear enough in the midst of this mournful desert, from which for so many years fear had kept a way the natives of the district.
It should be noticed that Franz and Rotzko had approached the castle on its northern face; Nic Deck and Doctor Patak had attacked it on the east by taking the left of the Plesa and leaving the torrent of Nyad to the right. The two directions formed a somewhat wide angle, of which the apex was the central donjon. On the northern side it was impossible to obtain admittance, for there was neither gate nor drawbridge, and the wall, in following the irregularities of the plateau, ran to a considerable height.
But it mattered little that access was impossible on this side, for the young count had no intention of entering within the walls.
It was half-past seven when Franz de Télek and Rotzko stopped at the extreme end of the Organ plateau. Before them rose this barbaric pile of buildings spread out in the gloom, and of much the same colour as that of the Plesa rocks. To the left, the wall made a sudden bend, flanked by the bastion at the angle. There, on the platform above the crenellated parapet stood the beech whose twisted branches bore witness to the violent south-westerly breezes at this height.
The shepherd Frik was not deceived; the legend gave but three more years of life to the old castle of the Barons of Gortz.
Franz in silence looked at the mass or buildings dominated by the stumpy donjon in the centre. There, without doubt, under that confused mass, were still hidden vaulted chambers long and sonorous, long dædalian corridors, and redoubts concealed in the ground such as the old Magyar fortresses still possess. No dwelling could have been more fit for the last descendant of the family of Gortz to bury himself in oblivion, of which none knew the secret. And the more the young count thought, the more he clung to the idea that Rodolphe de Gortz had taken refuge in the isolation of his Castle of the Carpathians.
But there was nothing to show that the donjon was inhabited. No smoke rose from its chimneys, no sound came from its closed windows. Nothing—not even the cry of a bird—troubled the silence of the gloomy dwelling.
For some minutes Franz eagerly gazed at this ring of wall, which once was full of the tumult of festival and the clash of arms. But he said nothing, for his mind was laden with oppressive thoughts and his heart with remembrances.
Rotzko, who respected the young count’s mournful silence, took care to keep a way from him, and did not interrupt him by a single remark. But when the sun went down behind the shoulder of the Plesa, and the valley of the two Syls began to be bathed in shadow, he did not hesitate to approach him.
“Master,” he said, “the evening has come. It will soon be eight o’clock.”
Franz did not appear to hear.
“It is time to start,” said Rotzko, “if we are to reach Livadzel before the inns close.”
“Rotzko—in a minute—yes—in a minute I will go with you,” said Franz.
“It will take us quite an hour, master, to return to the hill road, and as the night will then have fallen, we shall run no risk of being seen.”
“A few minutes more,” said Franz, “and we will go down towards the village.”
The count had not moved from the spot he had stopped at when he reached the plateau.
“Do not forget, master,” continued Rotzko, “that in the dark it will be difficult to pass among those rocks. We could hardly do it in broad daylight. You must excuse me if