The distance was not very great. In a few minutes both reached the bottom of the cliffs and stood in a ravine which widened rapidly above, but was accessible only through the rock gateway. Here too flowed the water they had seen above, one of the little streams which often burst suddenly out of the rocky soil of the Karst and in a short time as suddenly vanish again. Even here the water preserved its beneficent power, for fresh gra.s.s was growing around it, thin and scanty, it is true, but a sign of life amid this petrified nature, and there was life also in the clear waves which, with a low ripple and murmur, made a channel down the ravine.

Danira, with a sigh of relief, leaned against the cliff. The exhaustion of the rapid walk or excitement had made the girl tremble from head to foot, and she really seemed to need the support.

"We have reached the spot," she said, softly. "Here you are safe."

Gerald, who meantime had scanned the surroundings, shook his head doubtfully.

"The safety will last only until our place of refuge is discovered, and that will soon be done. Obrevic knows every defile as well as you, as soon as he has searched the village he will follow on our track without delay."

"Certainly. But he will halt before that rock gateway, he will not enter the precincts of the Vila spring, for then he would be obliged to give you his hand in friendship; that hand cannot be raised against you here. Fierce and revengeful as Marco may be, even he will not dare to break the spell of peace that rests upon this spot."

The young officer started and again cast a searching glance around the ravine.

"So that is why you brought us here? But what protects this place which is to shield us?"

"I do not know. Legend, tradition, superst.i.tion probably wove the spell centuries ago--enough that the charm still exists in all its ancient power. Even in my childhood I knew of the Vila spring and its spell of peace. Afterward, when far away, the memory sometimes came back to me like a half-forgotten legend that belonged to the realm of fairy-land.

Since my return I have known that the tale contains a saving truth. The spring is more sacred than the threshold of any church. Here even the murderer, the betrayer is safe. Here, the vendetta itself, that terrible family law of our people, must pause. No one has yet dared to violate the charm, and if any one tried it, he would be outlawed by all the members of the tribe."

"And you believe that this spell will guard even the foreigner, the foe?"

"Yes."

The answer was so firm that Gerald made no objection, though he doubted it.

"One mystery more in this mysterious land!" he said, slowly. "We will wait to see how it will be solved for us. We were treacherously lured into an ambush, and stand alone against a horde of enemies, so it will be no cowardice to trust ourselves to such protection."

He looked around him for George, who had instantly taken the practical side of the affair, and carefully and thoroughly searched the whole ravine. Finding nothing suspicious, he had climbed a large boulder, and stationed himself at a point from which he could watch at the same time the entrance and his lieutenant, for he still dreaded some piece of witchcraft from Danira. Unfortunately, he could not hear what was pa.s.sing between the pair. The wind was blowing too violently; but he could at least keep them in view. So he stood at his post firm and fearless, ready to defend himself like a man and a soldier against any intruding foe, and at the same time come to his lieutenant's aid with his whole stock of Christianity in case the latter should be treacherously seized by the Evil One from behind--the brave fellow feared neither death nor devil.

Gerald had approached Danira, who still leaned against the cliff, but she drew back. The mute gesture was so resolute in its denial that he dared not advance nearer. The deliverance she had bestowed only seemed to have raised one more barrier between them. He felt this, and fixed a reproachful glance upon her as he retired.

Danira either did not or would not see it, although the moonlight clearly illumined the features of both. Hastily, as though to antic.i.p.ate any warmer words, she asked:

"Where are your men?"

"At the fort. We returned there after the expedition of the morning, and the troops to whom we brought a.s.sistance with us."

"And nothing is known of your danger?

"On the contrary, I am supposed to be in perfect safety. The shameful plot was so cleverly devised. A dying comrade, who wished to place a last commission in my hands, his portfolio as a credential. The village we all thought still occupied by our men named. Obrevic was cautious enough, though it would have been more manly to have sought me in open battle, I certainly did not shun him. He preferred to act like an a.s.sa.s.sin, though he calls himself a warrior and a chief."

Danira's brow darkened, but she gently shook her head.

"You reckon with your ideas of honor. Here it is different, only the act is important; no account is taken of the means. Joan Obrevic fell by your hand, and his son must avenge him; that is the law of the race.

How, Marco does not ask; he knows but one purpose, the destruction of his foe; and, if he cannot accomplish it in open warfare, he resorts to stratagem. I heard the vow he made when we entered our native mountains on the morning after his escape, and he will fulfil it, though it should bring destruction on his own head. That is why you are safe here only for the time. I know Marco, and while he will not dare to approach the Vila spring, he will guard the entrance, actually besiege you here until desperation urges you to some reckless step by which you will fall into his hands. Your comrades must be informed at any cost."

"That is impossible! Who should, who could carry such a message?"

"I!"

"What, you would----"

"I will do nothing by halves, and your rescue is but half accomplished if no aid comes from without. But I must wait till Marco has reached the village; he will search every hut, examine every stone in it, and meanwhile I shall gain time to go."

"Never!" cried Gerald. "I will not permit it. You might meet Obrevic, and I, too, know him. If he should guess--nay, even suspect, your design, he would kill you."

"Certainly he would!" said Danira, coldly. "And he would do right."

"Danira!"

"If Marco punished treason with death he would be in the right, and I should not flinch from the blow. I am calling the foe to the aid of a foe; that is treason; I know it."

"Then why do you save me at such a price?" asked the young officer, fixing his eyes intently upon her.

"Because I must."

The words did not sound submissive but harsh. They contained a sullen rebellion against the power which had fettered not only the girl's will but her whole nature, and which enraged her even while she yielded to it. She had brought the foreigner, the foe, to the sacred spring, although she knew that such a rescue would be considered treachery and desecration; she was ready to sacrifice everything for him, yet at the same moment turned almost with hatred from him and his love.

The _bora_ could not penetrate the depths of the ravine, but it raged all the more fiercely on the upper heights, roaring around the peaks as if it would hurl them downward. Old legends relate that, on such tempestuous nights, the spirits of all the murdered men whose blood has ever reddened the earth are abroad, and it really seemed as though spectral armies were fighting in the air and sweeping madly onward.

Sometimes it sounded as if thousands of voices, jeering, threatening, hissing, blended in one confused medley, till at last all united with the raving and howling into a fierce melody, a song of triumph, which celebrated only destruction and ruin.

What else could have been its theme in this land where the people were as rigid and pitiless as the nature that surrounded them? Here conflict was the sole deliverance. A fierce defiance of all control, even that of law and morals, a b.l.o.o.d.y strife, and humiliating defeat. So it had been from the beginning, so it was now, and if the legendary ghosts were really sweeping by on the wings of the blast, they were still fighting, even in death.

Yet amid this world of battle, the Vila spring cast its spell of peace.

Whence it came, who had uttered it, no one knew. The origin was lost in the dim shadows of the past, but the pledge was kept with the inviolable fidelity with which all uncultured races cling to their traditions. Perhaps it was an instinct of the people that had formerly erected this barrier against their own arbitrary will and fierceness, and guarded at least one spot of peace--be that as it may, the place was guarded, and the rude sons of the mountains bowed reverently to the enchanted precinct, whose spell no hostile deed had ever violated.

The moon was now high in the heavens, and her light poured full into the ravine.

The bluish, spectral radiance streamed upon the dark cliffs and wove a silvery veil upon the clear waters of the spring, which flowed on untroubled by all the raging of the tempest. Above were storm and strife, and here below, under the shelter of the towering rocks, naught save a faint murmuring and rippling that seemed to whisper a warning to give up conflict and make peace beside the spring of peace.

"You must!" said Gerald, repeating Danira's last words. "And I too must. I too have struggled and striven against a power that fettered my will, but I no longer hate that power as you do. Why should we keep this useless barrier of hostility between us; we both know that it will not stand; we have tried it long enough. I heard the cry that escaped your lips when I so unexpectedly crossed the threshold of your house.

It was my own name, and the tone was very different from that hard, stern, 'I must.'"

Danira made no reply; she had turned away, yet could not escape his voice, his eyes. The low, half choked utterance forced a way to her heart; in vain she pressed both hands upon it. That voice found admittance, and she heard it amid all the raging of the storm.

"From the day I entered your mountain home one image stood before my soul, one thought filled it--to see you again, Danira! I knew we must meet some day. Why did you leave me that message? You would not take my contempt with you, though you defied the opinion of every one else. The words haunted me day and night! I could not forget them, they decided my destiny."

"It was a message of farewell," the young girl murmured in a half stifled tone. "I never expected to see you again, and I gave it to your promised wife."

"Edith is no longer betrothed to me," said the young officer, in a hollow tone.

Danira started in sudden, terror-stricken surprise.

"No longer betrothed to you? For heaven's sake, what has happened? You have severed the tie."

"No, Edith did it, and for the first time I realize how entirely she was in the right. Those laughing, untroubled, childish eyes gazed deep into my heart; they guessed what at that time I myself did not, or would not know. True, her father left me the option of returning if I could conquer the 'dream.' I could not, and now--by all that is sacred to me--I no longer wish to do so. What is the reality, the happiness of a whole life, compared with the dream of this moment, for which, perhaps, I must sacrifice existence? But I no longer complain of the stratagem that lured me here; it gave me this meeting, a meeting not too dearly purchased by the mortal peril that now surrounds me, nay, by death itself."

It was really Gerald von Steinach whose lips uttered these words, Gerald von Steinach, the cool, circ.u.mspect man with the icy eyes, who could not love.