The Princess Passes Part 6

"There are no mules to be had in Lucerne," he said.

"In the country near by, then?"

"Nor in the country near by. The nearest place where you could get one would be in the Valais--best at Brig."

"But I don't want to go to Brig," I said forlornly. "If I went to Brig, that would mean that I should have to do a lot of walking afterwards, to reach the parts I wish to reach, through the hot Rhone Valley, where I should be eaten up by gnats and other disagreeable wild beasts. I know the Rhone Valley between Brig and Martigny already, by railway travelling, and that is more than enough."

"The Rhone Valley is a misunderstood valley. Even between Martigny and Brig, it is far more beautiful than anyone who has seen it only from the railway can possibly judge," pleaded Herr Widmer. "It well repays a riding or walking tour."

But my soul girded against the Rhone Valley, and I would not be driven into it by persuasion. "I'd rather put up with a donkey to carry my luggage," said I, with visions of discarding half my Instantaneous Breakfasts, "than begin my walk in the Rhone Valley. Surely, Lucerne can be counted on to yield me up at least a donkey?"

"You must go into Italy to find an _ane_," replied the landlord, inexorable as Destiny.

I suddenly understood how a woman feels when she stamps her foot and bursts into tears. (There are advantages in being a woman.) To be thwarted for the sake of a mere, wretched animal, which I had always looked upon with indifference as the least of beasts! It was too much.

My features hardened. Inwardly, I swore a great oath that, if I went to the world's end to obtain it, I would have a pack-mule, or, if worse came to worst, a pack-donkey.

At this bitter moment I chanced to meet Molly's eyes and read in them a sympathy well-nigh extravagant. But I knew why it had been called out. If there is one thing which causes unbearable anguish to a true American girl it is to find herself wanting something "right away"

which she cannot have. But luckily for her country's peace, her lovers' happiness, this occurs seldom.

"What is the nearest place in Italy where Lord Lane could get a donkey?" she asked.

"It is possible that he might be able to buy or hire one at Airolo,"

said our landlord. "At one time they had them there, for the railway works, and mules also. But now I do not----"

"We can go there and see," said Molly.

"Airolo's on the other side of the St. Gothard, and automobiles aren't allowed on the Swiss pa.s.ses," remarked Jack.

This, to me, sounded final, so far as Airolo was concerned, but not so with the Honourable Mrs. Winston!

"What do they do to you if you _do_ go?" she asked, turning slightly pale.

"They fined an American gentleman who crossed the Simplon in his automobile last year, five thousand francs," answered Herr Widmer.

"Oh!" said she. "So an American did go over one of the pa.s.ses? Well, thank you _so_ much; we must decide what to do, and talk it over with you again later. Meanwhile, we're very happy, for it's lovely here."

Hardly had the door of the sitting-room closed on our host, when Molly, with the air of having a gun-powder plot to unfold, beckoned us both to come near. "I'll tell you what we'll do," said she, in a half-whisper, when surrounded by her body-guard of two. "First, we'll ask _everybody_ in Lucerne whether there are any mules or donkeys on the spot, just in case Herr Widmer might be mistaken; if there aren't any, let's go over the St. Gothard _in the middle of the night_."

"Good heavens, what a desperate character I've married!" exclaimed Jack.

"Not at all. Don't you see, at night there would be n.o.body on their silly old Pa.s.s that they make such a fuss about. Even in daylight diligences don't go over the St. Gothard in our times, and at night there'd be _nothing_, so we couldn't expose man or beast to danger.

We'd rush the _douanes_, or whatever they call them on pa.s.ses, and if we _were_ caught, what are five thousand francs?"

"I wouldn't dream of letting you do such a thing for me," I broke in hurriedly. "If Airolo or the neighbourhood turns out to be the happy hunting ground of the sedate mule or pensive _ane_, I will simply take train----"

"You will take the train, if you take it, over Jack's and my dead bodies," remarked Molly coldly.

"It would be rather sport to rush the Pa.s.s at night," said Jack.

"Oh, you darling!" cried Molly, "I've never loved you so much."

This naturally settled it.

We walked down to the town by an exquisite path leading through dark, mysterious pine forests; where the slim, straight trunks of the tall trees seemed tightly stretched, like the strings of a great harp, and where melancholy, elusive music was played always by the wind spirits.

In Lucerne we did not, as Molly had suggested, ask everybody to stand and deliver information, but we compromised by visiting tourists'

bureaux. At these places the verdict was an echo of our landlord's, and I saw that Molly and Jack were glad. Having scented powder, they would have been disappointed if the midnight battle need not be fought.

Molly had never seen Lucerne, which was too beautiful for a fleeting glance. It was arranged that, after driving me over the Pa.s.s, for weal or woe, they should return. They would leave most of their luggage at the Sonnenberg, and come back to spend some days, before continuing their tour as originally mapped out.

We slept that night in peace (it is wonderful how well you do sleep, even with a "mind diseased," after hours of racing through pure, fresh air on a motor car); and next day we began stealthy preparations for our adventure.

CHAPTER VI

The Wings of the Wind

"Oh, still solitude, only matched in the skies; Perilous in steep places, Soft in the level races, Where sweeping in phantom silence the cloudland flies."

--R. BRIDGES.

The wind howled a menace to Mercedes, as she glided down the winding road towards the comfortable, domestic-looking suburbs of Lucerne.

Banks of cloud raced each other across the sky, and, crossing the bridge over the Reuss, we saw that the waters of the Lake, turquoise yesterday, were to-day a sullen indigo. The big steamers rolled at their moorings; white-crested waves were leaping against the quays, and thick mists clung like rolls of wool to the lower slopes of Pilatus.

Molly's spirits rose as the mercury in the barometer fell. "Would you care for people if they were always good-tempered, or weather if it were always fair?" she asked me (we were sitting together in the tonneau, Jack driving). "I revel in storms, and if we have one to-night, when we are on the Pa.s.s, one of the dearest wishes of my life will be gratified. 'A storm on the St. Gothard!' Haven't the words a thunder-roll? Sunlight and mountain pa.s.ses don't belong together. I like to think of great Alpine roads as the fastnesses of giants, who threaten death to puny man when he ventures into their power."

It had been arranged that we should "potter" (as Winston called it) round the arms of the star-fish lake, until we reached Fluelen; that from there we should steal as far as we dared up the Reussthal while daylight lasted, dine at some village inn, and then, instead of returning to the lowlands of Lucerne, make a dash across the mighty barrier that shut us away from Italy. Under a lowering sky, and buffeted by short, sharp gusts of wind, which seemed the heralds of fiercer blasts, we swung along the reedy sh.o.r.es of the narrowing lake, the broken sides of the Rigi standing finely up on our right hand.

Winston was satirical about the poor Rigi and its railway, calling it the Primrose Hill and the Devil's d.y.k.e of Switzerland, the paradise of trippers, a mountain whose sides are hidden under cataracts of beer-bottles; but from our point of view, the vulgarities of the maligned mountain were mellowed by distance, and I neither could nor would look upon it as contemptible.

Leaving the Lake of the Forest Cantons, we spun along the margin of the tamer sheet of Zug, to pa.s.s, beyond Arth, into the great wilderness caused by the fearful landslide of a century ago, when a mighty ma.s.s of rock and earth split off from the main bulk of the Rossberg and thundered down into the valley. The slow processes of nature had done much to cover up decently all traces of the t.i.tan's rage, but the huge, bare scar on the side of the Rossberg still told its tale of tragedy. By the peaceful Lowerzer See the road undulated pleasantly, and at Schwyz (the hub of Swiss history) we had tea, the torn and imposing pyramids of the two Myten bravely rearing their heads above the mists that enc.u.mbered the valleys.

There was no need to hurry, for we had the night before us, so we pa.s.sed slowly, halting often, along the marvellous Axenstra.s.se, while Jack distilled into Molly's willing ears legends from the old heroic days of Switzerland, before it became the happy haven of hotel-keepers. From the car we could note the characteristics of the Cantons which had entered into the famous bond; pastoral and leafy Unterwalden, with green fields and orchards; Schwyz, also green and fertile; but Uri (the cold, highland partner in this great alliance), a country of towering mountains and savage rocks. Molly wanted to get a boat, and row across to the Rutli to stand on that spot where, in 1307, Walter Furst, Arnold of Melchthal, and Werner Stauffacher took the famous oath, and very reluctantly she gave up the wish when Jack pointed to the rising waves, painting in lurid colours the sudden and dangerous storms that sweep the Lake of Uri. When he went on, however, to insinuate doubts as to the historic accuracy of these old stories, and to hint that even William Tell might himself he an incorporeal legend, Molly clapped a little hand over his mouth, crying out that even if he had tried to destroy the Maid of Orleans he must spare William Tell. Further on, she made us confide the car to Gotteland on the Axenstra.s.se, while we descended the path to Tell's chapel and did reverence to the hero's memory. On such a day as this must it have been that Tell leaped ash.o.r.e from the boat, leaving Gessler to look after himself; for the blasts were shrieking down the lake, and the waves dashed their foam over the ledge where stands the chapel.

Jack stopped several times in the rock galleries of the Axenstra.s.se before we reached Fluelen; consequently it was evening when we slipped into little Altdorf, where Molly insisted on making a curtsey to the statue of Tell and his agreeable little boy. Winston predicted that we should probably not be challenged until we got to Goschenen, as up to that point the road does not take on a true Alpine character.

The storm (which seemed rising to a point of fury) was in our favour, too, for no one would choose to be out on such a night, save mad English automobilists and wilful American girls.

Dusk was beginning to shadow the Reussthal, as we ran past the railway station at Erstfeld, and began at length the ascent of the St. Gothard Road. The great railway (of which we had caught glimpses as we came along the lake) was now our companion, while on the other hand roared the tumbling Reuss. So hoa.r.s.e and insistent was the voice of the stream that Molly suggested it should be "had up for brawling." It did us the service, however, of drowning the noise of our motor, at all times a discreetly silent machine; and as Jack had given orders that the big Bleriots should not be lighted (two good oil lamps showing us the way), we had high hopes that we might fly by unnoticed, on the wings of the storm. In Amsteg no one seemed to look upon us with surprise, and here the road turned, to worm itself into the heart of the mountains, while the railway, often disappearing into tunnels, ran far above our heads.

By the time we had reached Gurtnellen night had fallen black and close, and Molly issued an edict that we should dine in the open air, instead of seeking the doubtful comforts of a village inn, where, too, we might suffer from the solicitude of some officious policeman. The car accordingly was run under the lee of a great rock, the ever-inspired Gotteland extemporised a shelter with the waterproof rugs, and the blue flame of the chafing-dish presently cheered us with its glow. The wind bellowed along the precipices, the Reuss shouted in its rocky bed, and once an express from Italy to the north pa.s.sed high above us, streaming its lights through the darkness like sparks from a boy's squib. Yet those plutocratic travellers up in the _wagons lits_ were not having anything like the "good time" we enjoyed, warm in our motor coats, sitting snug behind our rock, a lamp from the car illuminating our little party and s.h.i.+ning on Molly's piquant profile as she brewed savoury messes in her magic cauldron. This was testing thoroughly the resources of the automobile, which was playing the part of travelling kitchen and larder as well as travelling chariot, and could no doubt be made, with a little ingenuity, to play the parts also of travelling bed and tent. Yet, as I said all this aloud to Jack, my mind leaped forward to other nights which I should soon be spending alone tinder the stars, and I thought tenderly of my aluminium stove and tent, my sleeping-sack, and the other camping tools I had bought in Bern.

From where we lay hid behind our rock to Airolo was only some thirty-two miles, and the car ate up distance with so voracious an appet.i.te, that it was clear we should arrive in the little Italian town in the dead waste and middle of the night. To travel a forbidden road on an automobile, and then to knock up a snoring innkeeper at one in the morning, to ask him where we could find a donkey, seemed to be straining unduly the sense of humour; so after consultation we decided that we should leave Airolo to its slumbers and speed down the Pa.s.s into Italy until we ran to earth the object of our quest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BLUE FLAME OF THE CHAFING-DISH".]

Molly had produced excellent coffee; the smoke of our cigarettes mingled its perfume with the night air. Our position had in it something unique, for while we were "in the heart of one of nature's most savage retreats" (as said a guide-book of my boyhood), we were at the same time enjoying the refinements of civilisation, and I suggested to Winston that our bivouac would form a fit subject for a picture labelled, in the manner of some Dutch masters, "Automobilists Reposing."

By the time Gotteland had packed up everything, and we were seated once more in the car, it was nearly eleven o'clock at night. Coming out from the shelter of our rock, so fierce a blast of wind smote us that Molly would, I think, have been carried off her feet had I not given her a steadying arm. We had to cram our caps on our heads, or the wind would have torn them from us, and the voice of the motor was swallowed up in the shrieking of the tempest. Molly was evidently destined to have her wish.