The high adventure

Chapter I

T HE Captain and the Chief Engineer of the Jean- J deques Rousseau were coaling their ship in the calm and leisurely fashion which befitted their official standing and surroundings.

No wildest exaggeration could describe the tiny wharf as jutting out into the placid lake. The very utmost that could be claimed for it was a mild suggestion to any passing craft that, if it really was on the look-out for a landing, it might go farther and possibly fare worse.

At the moment, however, the wharf was cumbered and crowded and busy beyond its wont, by reason of the dozen very small bags of coal which the Captain and the Chief and Only Engineer were casually carrying on board the J.-J. Rousseau , and perfunctorily emptying down a small black hole in the small white deck.

When the last small bag was emptied, and the Captain had gently kicked all the stray lumps into the hole, the Chief and Only Engineer got a soft brush and swept the deck, and then dipped a mop overboard and lightly touched away the last remaining traces of disorder.

The young man in the easy shooting-suit, who had walked across from the station carrying his own portmanteau because no one had offered to do it for him, had got as far away as possible into the bows when the coaling operations began, and had lit a cigar, and watched it all with the tolerant amusement of one out for a holiday and to whom time was of no consideration whatever.

“Doesn’t seem to be any great rush for the boat,” he said to himself. “Glad I made sure of lunch, anyhow. Suppose we’ll start sometime.”

And when the Captain had finished the story he had been reading in a weekly paper when duty called him to the coal-bags, he lit a long thin cigar, gave a searching glance along the shady avenue that led to the station, to make quite sure that no fellow-citizen was endangering his health by hastening to the boat, slipped a cord attached to the wharf off a cleat by his side, and the Chief and Only Engineer let himself down feet foremost through the opened glass top of the engine-room and pulled a handle.

The Jean- Jacques purred softly and crept away from the friendly little wharf, in a quiet and furtive fashion, as though anxious to escape unobserved without any suggestion of offence. The Chief and Only Engineer crawled up through the open window, lit a long thin cigar, pulled a paper out of his blue linen pocket, and balanced himself on the rail whence he could look down into the machinery, and gave himself up to study.

The Captain slid a loop of string over a spoke of the wheel, lest the Jean- Jacques should take to wild and unusual courses, unlocked a box, took out another smaller box and opened it, and in the character of Purser, looked invitingly across at the solitary passenger in the bows.

The young man rose obediently and strolled along and requested a ticket for St. Peter’s-insel.

“You’re not overcrowded to-day, Captain,” he said pleasantly in German.

“It is late in the season, you see.”

“I suppose I’ll be able to get a room at the hotel there ?”

“Oh, yes. You stop?”

“Yes, I thought of stopping a week or so. It’s a nice quiet place, isn’t it ?”

“Oh, yes, it is quiet.”

“Permit me to offer you a cigar,” and the Captain graciously accepted it and placed it carefully in his waistcoat pocket.

“And you, Herr Engineer?” and the Chief and Only graciously accepted one, and placed it carefully somewhere inside his blue linen jacket.

The Captain, as Purser, clipped the ticket he had just been paid for, collected it, locked it up in his box, and as Captain hauled out his weekly paper, subsided on to his seat and started another story. And the Jean- Jacques rolled quietly on across the blue mirror of the lake towards a tiny red-roofed village, which sprawled up the sides of a wooded promontory, and lay basking in the late September sun amid its widespread vineyards, like a dapple of poppies among the com.

“Erlach!” said the Captain quietly, as he slipped the noose from the wheel and the boat nuzzled up to the wharf, and waited. But the long road up to the village lay white and empty to the sun, so presently they loosed again, the Captain tied up the wheel, and he and the Chief and Only betook themselves to their literary studies once more.

Now the Jean- Jacques was jogging lazily along due north, skirting a long low shore of reeds and rushes backed by a dense tangle of shrubs, out of which, in one place, a clump of trees rose like an island in the midst of the lower growth. This, however, was not the actual shore of the lake, but an extraordinary peninsula, miles in length though but a few yards in width, which was slowly evolving itself out of the gradually sinking level of the Bieler See. On the other side of it was another broad stretch of water, then the eastern shore, and far away behind them a long serrated line of snowy peaks. The western shore of the lake was dotted with tiny white villages, set like jewels in a broad band of velvety green vineyards, and behind them rose the dark pine-clad heights of the Chasseral,

But the solitary passenger had just had lunch, the sun was pleasantly warm, and the cradle-like roll of the little steamer was eminently soporific. He was almost in a dreamy doze when the boat drew up again at a small wooden pier connected with the shore by a long slender plankway.

“St. Peter’s,” murmured the Captain, and the young man woke with a start, picked up his bag and coat and stick, and stepped ashore with a nod and a good-day to the studious ones.

“Where’s the house?” he asked, for he could see nothing but trees and water.

“Other side.”

So, not knowing how far the other side might be, he dropped his bag where he stood, hung his coat over the railing, and strolled inland in search of a lodging.

The path wound on and on through tangled undergrowth, with a pleasant chequer of light and shade from the thin leafage of trees, which struck him as having shot up too quickly for sturdy growth. Just outside the lower growth on either side, the lake gleamed through the tall rushes but a foot or two lower than the path.

He came presently to a massive stone wall about five feet in height, which rounded away from him on either side and disappeared among the trees above and the undergrowth below. It was a very ancient wall built of huge rough-hewn blocks without mortar, gray and mossy, with tiny ferns and flowers and creeping plants in every niche and cranny, and inside the wall was what he had come for — and more.

A slope led up through the wall into the island, and he found that the higher ground inside was level with the top of the gray stone wall, which clasped it all round like a solid granite belt and held it all together.

The path along which he had come had evidently at one time been below the level of the lake, and this break in the wall and the slope up which he had come had been a landing-place for boats. This firm rich turf, speckled all over with pale purple crocuses although it was late September, was the island proper, and here were long green glades, and mighty trees, — red-stemmed pines a hundred feet high and every one as straight as a ship’s mast, and huge spreading oaks, and great fantastic beeches flinging out wild arms — it might be in welcome though it looked more like warning.

As he came softly up the slope, half a dozen lizards, basking on the great squared stones of the ancient landing-place, whisked out of sight, all except their tails, and then came peeping back for another look at so unusual a sight as a passer-by. Far away up in the blue above, the giant trees rustled a soft welcome — or a warning ; and the young man stood and took a deep breath of delight.

“A find, my boy, a veritable find!” he said to himself. “If I had searched for a year I could not have found a more perfect place. Peace ! Perfect peace ! Those trees are like vast cathedral aisles. I could live here for a year and never tire of it.”

A choice of ways invited him : to the left, a broad path, dim even at mid-day by reason of the thick green roof overhead, wandered away along the top of the gray stone wall ; to the right a long stretch of meadow-land ran like a green drive till it swept round a distant corner among the trees ; straight in front a rough path rose steeply among the pillared columns and led into dim dark heights and depths beyond. It was soft with pine needles and beech nuts, and set thick with traps of sprawling roots.

He took the path in front, and climbed the hill with a new spring in his step, and sniffed the sweet aromatic scent of the pines with rare delight.

“Heavenly !” he was saying to himself, when a pine-root, lurking beneath the cushiony needles, caught him by the foot and jerked his thoughts rudely back to earth.

And that was why — his eyes being bent to the brae — he saw nothing of her till she spoke.

“At last ! — I began to fear you were never coming !” — a sweet full voice, quickened obviously with eager anxiety, and when he jerked up, in vast surprise, his eyes lighted on a sweet girlish face which seemed to him the very perfect embodiment of the voice.

She had come out from behind the great smooth bole of a beech, and stood waiting for him, a slim graceful figure in a tailor-made dress, which a brotherly experience told him cost a very great deal more than you would have imagined ; on her soft brown hair a black lace scarf ; in her eyes, which he thought were very dark blue or violet, all the feeling of the quick words of her most unexpected greeting.

“Heavens!” said the young man to himself. “What a lovely face! Who the deuce does she take me for? I wish I was the right man !”

He had whipped off his cap, and stood facing her in silence for a moment. Then he answered her in very excellent French.

“I assure Mademoiselle I came as quickly as possible,” he began lightly. “If I had known ”

“I have been in despair. I thought some misfortune must have overtaken you.”

“What on earth ” began the young man to himself,

and opened his mouth to ask her what it all meant, but she hurried on without giving him the chance of a word.

“No!” she said, with an imperious gesture. “There is no time for talking about that. It is all arranged. She is to get out on Friday night” — this was Wednesday — “you are to meet her and bring her to the boat you will have waiting. The rest we have to arrange now, and that is what I am so anxious about. We could perhaps conceal her here for a day or two. I think they will not search here for her. They will expect her to go further away ”

More than once he had tried to check the sweet vehement flow, and each time she had stopped him with that quick impatient little gesture which would take no denial. And, truly, she was so amazingly beautiful in her vehemence that it was with regret that he felt himself bound to stop her at any cost.

“We might go by way of Morat and so by Noirburg to Thun, or we could try by Luscherz. What do you think?” she rushed on.

“Mademoiselle,” he said quietly. “I am sorry, but there is some mistake ! I tried to stop you, you know. I haven’t an idea what you are talking about.”

A startled look came into her face.

“Oh !” she cried, and caught at his arm with a fierce little grip. “Are you not then Monsieur Bertel ?” and she peered into his face with a look of anguished dismay.

“Not at all. My name is Vemey — Charles Verney — attached to the British Embassy in Paris, and very much at your service, I assure you, Mademoiselle, if I can be of any use to you.”

“What have I done?” she gasped, and sank back against the beech tree, a perfect picture of beauty in distress.

“You have told me certain things by mistake,” he said quietly, “and for your sake, since it distresses you, I regret it f For myself — if Mademoiselle should see fit to honour me further, I will do all in my power to assist her. If not — I am an Englishman, and I give Mademoiselle my word to forget all that she has said — at all events never to divulge it.”

“You ought to have told me at once,” she blazed angrily. “You had no right to ”

“But, Mademoiselle, I tried to as soon as I understood your mistake. I had not an idea what it was all about.”

Then her swift anger passed, and only the misery of her grievous error remained. She dropped her face into her hands, and her slender figure shook with angry sobs, and then she plucked a tiny lace handkerchief out of her sleeve, and bit it with fierce little white teech to keep the sobs from coming out.

“I am distressed beyond words,” began Verney. “I have sisters of my own, you see ”

The tearful eyes flashed a quick searching glance at his face again, and he thought they looked like dark velvet pansies after a shower.

“If Mademoiselle would tell me how I could help her, I pledge myself to it, whatever it is,” and the words rang truly on her tense-strung nerves.

“I thank you, sir,” she said, with a fine effort at composure. “For the moment, please to forget everything. For the rest, I must think — and — and — there is so little time, and my head is in a whirl.”

“I will forget till Mademoiselle bids me remember. Perhaps two heads could think better than one.”

“Have you come to stop here?”

“I came seeking some place off the beaten track where I could have a month’s rest. I had never heard of St. Peter’s-insel till I tumbled across it in Baedeker this morning. I was going on to Evilard.”

The girl nodded.

“I must think,” she said briefly. “Perhaps” — and she looked doubtfully at him again — “I don’t know. I must think,” and she put one small white hand to her brow, as though to still the confusion inside. “Please go. The house is straight along there.”

“I will go, since you bid me, Mademoiselle. But please believe me when I assure you once more that I would do anything else you would ask of me with still greater pleasure,” and he bowed with quite un-English grace, and went off along the wonderful dim avenue of this newly-enchanted isle.

“What a lovely, lovely girl !” he was chanting to himself, though his square-set shoulders and firm step gave no slightest hint of the mighty sentimental feeling that was dancing in his heart like the sunbeams on the lake over there.

He stopped at one place where a two-hundred-year oak had been felled, and looked at it pitifully, and then out over the lake at the long line of snowy peaks on the right, but he did not once look back at the girl.

She stood for a time watching him and drying her eyes on the tiny lace handkerchief.

“Oh, the fool that I have made of myself !” and the little white teeth ground together in anger. . . . “He

looks good. ... I wonder, I wonder. . . . ” and

she turned and went slowly and full of thought into the sombre depths of the wood.

Chapter II

V ERNEY strolled on along the dim forest aisle, carpeted here ankle deep with rustling leaves. The vistas on each side gleamed russet and green and gold and faded into shadowy distances, beyond which, since he was now on the heights, he caught the glint of the water below. He came at last to a little clearing walled with lofty trees, in which stood a pavilion of size, with a cupola roof and doors and windows all round it.

This was so far the only house he had seen; and the fiery, tearful girl he had just left, the only, but very charming, sign of human occupancy of this delectable isle of sleep.

He wondered if this could be the house of the island and she its only tenant. But a glance inside showed him it was only a huge summer-house, void of furniture, and evidently not much used.

“All the same,” he said to himself, “I would live here for a year on the chance of helping that girl.”

He went on along the broad path, found it a cul-de-sac, and turning haphazard into a by-path which seemed to lead down-hill, came out at last into an orchard, below which lay a long range of red-roofed buildings.

Very quaint and tempting they looked, as he came down past a farmsteading on the one side, all under one great roof, with the sweet smell of cattle and grunting of pigs, and a wood-cellar as big as a church, piled high with winter firing. On the other side a heavy rounded archway gave entrance to a quadrangle, and just beyond it a walled flower garden stretched along the front of the house.

He passed along the garden wall to get a better view, and stood entranced with it all.

“It’s just sheer delight!” he said to himself. “And to think that nobody seems to know of it !”

The old grey house, with its background of mellow foliage, its massive walls, its ancient red roof broken by dormer windows, its belfry soaring up like a small church spire — he learned in due course that the building had originally been a monastery — and its weather-beaten green lattices, gave him all the feeling of a newly-discovered treasure. Perhaps the thought that that lovely girl was living there had something to do with it.

Most of the green lattices were closed. From the window-sill of one that was open hung a crimson bathingcostume. Hers ? he wondered hopefully.

It was all delightful beyond expectation. He would see what it was like inside. So he opened the latched gate in the old stone wall and sought a front entrance.

But he found all the lower storey given up, as in most Swiss houses, to work-rooms — in one a carpenter’s bench, in another gardening tools, and so far he had not seen a soul but that beautiful girl in the wood.

Then, as he stood in one of the empty basement rooms, a murmur of voices caught his ear, and poking about in the semi-darkness he came upon a narrow doorway in the side-wall, and climbing a steep flight of steps found himself in a kitchen hung with gleaming pots and pans, and in the presence of a couple of busy women, who viewed him with good-humoured surprise.

He told them he wanted a room, and was promptly led up a few more steps into a wooden cloister which surrounded the open quadrangle. His guide tugged at the handle of a great bell which hung above his head, and went back to her kitchen. A huge yellow and white St. Bernard uncoiled himself leisurely from underneath a table and lounged towards him with lazy curiosity in his deep red eyes. A pleasant-faced girl came tripping down a broad wooden staircase and greeted him with a welcoming smile.

“Don’t touch him !” she said in German, as the young man offered his hand to the monster for inspection. “He is wicked with strangers. Barri, lie down ! Lie down, I tell you !” and she emphasised the order with an imperative stamp of the foot. Barri, undismayed, completed his leisurely inspection, snuffled, and coiled himself up under the table to think it over.

“I want a room for a few days,” said Vemey. “My bag and coat are at the landing-place. Perhaps you can send for them. And what time is supper?”

The girl led him up the wooden staircase to a wide wooden gallery, opened the door of a room and flung open the green lattice, told him the dining-room was at the end of the gallery, supper was at seven, and she would send a boy for his things.

The room itself, with its comfortable-looking bed, its ancient panelling and white-scrubbed floor all worm-eaten and bitten into strange fantastic patterns, its antiquated chairs and great carved table, was all in keeping with the rest and all like treasure-trove to him.

He went over to the window and leaned out enjoy ably. In front stretched the placid green lake, beyond on his right were the white peaks of the distant Alps again, from the sill of the next window hung the crimson bathing costume.

“I wouldn’t mind stopping here for a year,” he said to himself once more.

Out on the lake a boat — or was it a great water-beetle — was crawling slowly across to the western shore, leaving in its wake a half-mile fan of widening ripples like the tail of a watery comet.

He wondered when he would see the girl of the wood again. At supper-time, in any case, he supposed. He wondered if she would have made up her mind to let him help her ; and he wondered much what her trouble could be.

He strolled about the rambling old house with great enjoyment, poked into some disused rooms piled with lumber, and discovered faded monkish frescoes on the plaster, and grotesque wood carvings and ancient chests black with age. He delved into great cellars under another heavy archway, and came on mighty cider-presses, and barrels the size of small rooms. He wandered about the farm orchard, and finally off along the side of a vineyard towards a row of stately poplars which rose out of a clump of trees by the lake side.

Here he found another landing-place and a small harbour full of boats, and as he stood, planning cool, delicious, early morning bathes off the end of the wooden jetty, and delightful moonlight excursions on the water, he saw a boat coming slowly across the lake and making for the island.

As it drew nearer his interest shot lip suddenly to boiling-point. For the rower was slim of figure, and the crown of fair hair above identified her as the girl he had left tearful and anxious in the wood. From the slowness of her strokes, and the slight pause at the end of each, he saw that she was tired out. He wondered if she had found a way through her difficulties, whatever they were, and he wished much that she would afford him the opportunity of helping her.

The girl steered evidently by some landmark astern, for she came straight for the little harbour and never once turned her head till she was almost in it. Then, glancing over her shoulder to mark her landing-place, she saw him coming down the sloping bank to give her a hand ashore.

She loosed her oars as the overhanging prow ran up the shingle, and stood up and lifted her black lace scarf from her shoulders on to her head, and it was a revelation to him that so simple a thing should add such dignity to so slight a figure.

He was glad to see, too, that she had quite recovered her equanimity. The sweet face was composed, even a trifle set in its purposeful firmness, but she looked very weary as she drew off the leather gloves she had worn for protection from the oars, and laid one white hand gently in his and stepped ashore, with a quiet, “ Merci , Monsieur!”

“I’m afraid you have over-tired yourself,” said Verney, with genuine concern. “Now that is a thing I would gladly have done for you, if you had told me to.”

There was almost a whimsical look in the tired face as she glanced up at him, and said. “I could not then. Now, — it is different.”

Verney shook his head. “I’m no good at ptizzles. You are one vast enigma, Mademoiselle. What have I done in the meantime to earn your better opinion?”

“Nothing. It is what I have done myself, but I could hardly have asked your assistance.”

The young man wagged his head hopelessly again. “I give it up.”

“But you would still help me ?” she asked quickly.

“To the utmost extent in my power. Only tell me how.”

“After supper then, for I am tired now. Meet me here, M. Verney, at half-past eight, and you shall take me for a little row in the moonlight, and T will tell you then how you can, perhaps, help me.”

“ I am grateful to you for your confidence, Mademoiselle. Shall I walk up with you?”

“Please no. If you will go that way, I will go this. We shall meet at supper.”

“And afterwards ! — I thank you !”

Chapter III Glamour

W HEN Verney strolled into the salon he found the other guests already seated at table, and, pending the arrival of more substantial fare, all chatting together in that quasi-friendly fashion which differentiates the continental from the British public table, by accepting even a stranger as possible until he is proved the reverse.

The room was large, with ancient panelling similar to that in his bed-room. There were windows looking out over the darkening lake, and windows at the end through which still glimmered the soft saffron and crimson of the lingering sunset.

The red-shaded lamps and great bowls of red and yellow roses on the table gave him a supreme sense of homely comfort, the comprehensive bow with which he took his seat was responded to by every one with courteous particularity, and once more he said to himself, “I have fallen well !”

Fallen most delightfully, too, he discovered, as to his position at table, for Mademoiselle sat exactly opposite him, and the great bowls of roses were placed with mathematical precision above and below her, with a shaded lamp between. And the chastened glow of the lamp lit up the beautiful face and the roses with a soft radiance, outside which, like a massive frame, was the outer darkness of the room and the rest of the company.

Next to Mademoiselle, however, was an elderly lady with

GLAMOUR snow-white hair, and a pleasant, smiling face, and supper was barely started when she looked smilingly across at Verney, and said, in English, “They told me there was some one arrived who spoke English. It would give me such pleasure to hear and speak it again.”

“It is very curious how an Englishman is always known even before he opens his mouth,” said the young man, with a smile and a bow. “I have not spoken a word of English since I arrived, and yet, you see, I am labelled Englishman at a glance.”

“One recognises an Englishman, no matter how well he speaks another tongue,” smiled the old lady. “But you, Monsieur, — you are very English to look at.”

“And yet I have lived very many years abroad, and French and German are almost as natural to me as my own tongue.”

“All the same you are, I should say, typically English, and, truly, for myself I prefer the English type,” said the old lady with a decided nod. “Oh, you need not fear” — as he shot a deprecating glance along the table, — “they none of them understand except my niece here” — indicating Mademoiselle. “And in what countries has your lot been cast, Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet to ask?”

“I was in Stockholm for a time, then in St. Petersburg, then Berlin, now Paris.

“And you do not prefer Berlin to all the others?”

“I do not,” — so emphatically that the old lady laughed out with enjoyment.

“And Petersburg?”

“It is well enough at times, but ”

“Yes,” she nodded, “but— there is always the shadow behind.”

“Exactly ! There is always the shadow behind. But I must compliment Madame on her unusually good English.

Surely, it was not acquired anywhere but in England itself.”

“I lived there for many years, and I love the English and their ways — except their climate, which is detestable. The fogs ! And the mud-snow ! Here, if we do have a fog, at times, it is at all events white, and our snow is snow, and it also is white.”

“Yes, I’m afraid you beat us in little details such as that, but we have to put up with such things as best we can.”

“You are attached to the Embassy in Paris, I understand” — from which he perceived that Mademoiselle had discussed him with the old lady.

“I am by way of becoming a diplomat,” he bowed. “It is a long road, but not altogether unamusing.”

“I had many good friends in Paris, but it is years since I was there. I wonder if we possess any in common — the de Montessones, the d’Auriacs, the d’Aubignes ”