Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1896-10-10


Of the iceborn Arve.
Then upward again, past the violet
and gentian sprinkled verdure of the
lateral moraines and the gorgeous beds
Of rhododendrons, to which the bees of
Chamouni resort for honey, past the
grassy slopes where the shepherds drive
their herds across from Montauvert
every year, Gisela leads them, talking
fast but thinking faster, until they
stand on narrow ledge Of rock at the
foot of glittering snow slope that
overlooks the Glacier des Pelerhines
and the cascade Of that name.
"Speak softly here" she says, lower
ing her voice to a whisper. 1.-THE snow
is insecure, and a sudden Earring Of the
air will surely bring an avalanche upon
us. have heard the shepherds and the
guides caution each other against this
place, for once before snowslide swept
down here. It was the wind made by
its swift descent that snapped and felled
the trees yonder."
Athelstan gazed down at the twisted,
broken and Frustrated trunks with a
suddenly awakened fear. They are
mutely, flercely, eloquent Of what fate
awaits him and his wife should word
be spoken heedlessly or foot ring in
cautiously against stone.
"Why have you brought us here,
then?" he asks in a whisper. 'There is
no special view.''
No, m 'sieur, but there is special
danger. I have waited for your return
these many years. l have wished that
we might meet here, with a certain
death quivering above us. Can you not
guess why?''
Her voice rises recklessly an inflexion
higher. There is a flush of color upon
her brow. Her attitude is one Of graft.
fed revenge.
"How can guess, Gisela?" he STAN.
mers.
His face 10 blanched; his eyes dilate
with dread. Ethel, his wife, glances
from her husband to the girl with terro,
stricken amazement.
"What does she mean, Sydney? Elk.
plain it to me.
''She is mad, Ethel!" he returns, col.
Letting himself a little. "Come, we
will 60 back. 1t is time"
"You will not, cries Gisela, raising
her voice until it becomes shrek.
"You will not. You will not escape my
vengeance 90 easily" Long smolder.
ing resentment at her base desertion has
burst forth into the quenchless fame Of
hopeless jealousy, and she is careless
what she does-careless of her own life.
"You made me love you" she goes
on fiercely, "that summer SO long past
now; made me give up Giotto and grieve
my parents and estrange my friends 70,
your sake, and now you think to live
happily with your English wife.
"You do not know that Giotto killed
himself in his jealous anger, that my
mother died Of broken heart, that my
father died poor because I left them to
60 after you-though my search was
vain. You do not hear the cry for retri-
button that rises from the ground where
they sleep. You do not, but I do. Ha
hat'
The sound Of her laughter rings
among the rocks and down the sleeping
wales and in and out among the vast
snow masses piled around the crags.
There is a trembling movement on the
face Of the slope Of dazzling white above
IAN ominous. slipping, sliding sound.
"Quick! Hasten!" cried Athelstan,
seizing his wife's arm. 1.-THE balance ia
disturbed; the avalanche is upon us.
There is not a moment to be lost.
Hasteni"
They hurry to the left, where the
ledge broadens out upon the plateau-to
the right it narrows more and more
leaving Gisela standing motionless,
hurting her derisive mirth at them.
Surely they will escape. The distance
is not far.
But the great SNOW sheet, flinging
stones and trees and frost spray far be-
fore it's thunderous advance, is gaining
fast upon them. It rushes headlong, q
mass Of overpowering majesty, terrible
in it's might, adown that awful slope,
and ere the roar Of it in their ears can !
drown the sound Of that mocking mirth |
the snow foam billow that curls upon
its lower edge sweeps them ont into the
gulf below.
There is woman's CRY, . mans
curse, mocking laugh cut swiftly
short, and the avalanche passes on.
It roars along, it's breath going before
1t like destroying storm, and the gulf
in which the three bruised bodies lie is
filled with it's snowy whiteness
They sleep soundly there, beneath
that chilly oounterpane-sheltered in