Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER VIII.

The broth­er and sis­ter left the inn at sun­rise the next morn­ing. The fif­teen mile walk from Dal to the cel­ebrat­ed falls of the Rjukan, and back again, was a mere tri­fle for Joel, but it was nec­es­sary to econ­omize Hul­da's strength, so Joel hired fore­man Lengling's kar­iol. This, like all kar­iols, had but one seat, but the wor­thy man was so large that he had been obliged to have his kar­iol built to or­der, and this be­ing the case the ve­hi­cle was large enough to en­able Hul­da and Joel to sit side by side quite com­fort­ably; and if the ex­pect­ed tourist was wait­ing for them at Rjukan­fos as they an­tic­ipat­ed, he could take Joel's place and the lat­ter could ei­ther re­turn afoot or mount­ed up­on the step be­hind the kar­iol.

The road from Dal to the falls is very rough but in­de­scrib­ably charm­ing. It is re­al­ly rather a foot­path than a road. The bridges across the count­less streams that dance mer­ri­ly along to the Maan are all con­struct­ed of un­hewn logs, but the Nor­we­gian horse tra­vers­es them with a sure step, and though the kar­iol has no springs, its long and slight­ly elas­tic shafts soft­en the jolt­ing at least to some ex­tent.

The day was charm­ing, and Hul­da and Joel drove along at a brisk pace through the flow­ery fields, bathed on the left by the clear wa­ters of the Maan. Clumps of birch­es here and there shad­ed the sun­ny road, and the dew still glit­tered on the blades of grass. To the right of the tor­rent tow­ered the snow-​clad sum­mit of the Gous­ta, which ris­es to an al­ti­tude of six thou­sand feet.

For near­ly an hour, the ve­hi­cle moved on rapid­ly, the as­cent be­ing com­par­ative­ly slight; but soon the val­ley be­came nar­row­er, the gay rivulets were trans­formed in­to foam­ing tor­rents, and though the road wound in and out it could not avoid all the in­equal­ities of the ground. Be­yond came re­al­ly dan­ger­ous pass­es, through which Joel guid­ed the ve­hi­cle with no lit­tle skill; be­sides, with him Hul­da feared noth­ing. When the road was very rough she clung to his arm, and the fresh­ness of the morn­ing air brought a glow to the pret­ty face which had been un­usu­al­ly pale for some time.

But it was nec­es­sary for them to as­cend to still greater heights, for the val­ley here con­tract­ed in­to mere­ly a nar­row chan­nel for the pas­sage of the riv­er, a chan­nel in­closed on ei­ther side by mas­sive walls of rock. Over the neigh­bor­ing fields were scat­tered a few di­lap­idat­ed farm-​hous­es, the re­mains of _soeters_, which were now aban­doned, and a few shep­herd's huts al­most hid­den from view by clumps of birch­es and oaks. Soon it be­came im­pos­si­ble for them to see the riv­er, though they could dis­tinct­ly hear it dash­ing along in its rocky chan­nel, and the coun­try as­sumed an in­de­scrib­ably wild and im­pos­ing as­pect.

A drive of two hours brought them to a rough saw-​mill perched up­on the edge of a wa­ter-​fall at least fif­teen hun­dred feet in height. Wa­ter-​falls of this height are by no means rare in the Ves­fjord­dal, but the vol­ume of wa­ter is usu­al­ly small. This is not the case with the falls of the Rjukan­fos how­ev­er.

On reach­ing the saw-​mill, Joel and Hul­da both alight­ed.

“A half hour's walk will not be too much for you, will it, lit­tle sis­ter?” asked Joel.

“No, broth­er; I am not tired, and a lit­tle ex­er­cise will do me good.”

“It will be a good deal in­stead of a lit­tle, for you will have some pret­ty hard climb­ing to do.”

“I can cling to your arm, Joel.”

It was ev­ident that the kar­iol must be aban­doned at this point, for it would be im­pos­si­ble for it to make its way through the rough paths, the nar­row pass­es, and over the big, fan­tas­ti­cal­ly shaped rocks that her­ald­ed the close prox­im­ity of the great falls.

Al­ready, they could see in the dis­tance a thick mist, the spray from the seething wa­ters of Rjukan.

Hul­da and Joel took a shady path which is well known to guides, and which leads to the end of the val­ley. A few mo­ments af­ter­ward they found them­selves up­on a moss-​cov­ered rock al­most in front of the fall. In fact there was no chance of get­ting any near­er to it on that side.

The broth­er and sis­ter would have had con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ty in mak­ing them­selves heard if they had wished to speak; but their thoughts were those that could be ex­changed with­out the agen­cy of the lips.

The vol­ume of the Rjukan fall is enor­mous, its height very con­sid­er­able, and its roar deaf­en­ing. The earth makes an abrupt de­scent of nine hun­dred feet to the bed of the Maan mid­way be­tween Lake Mjos and Lake Tinn, nine hun­dred feet, that is to say six times the height of Ni­agara, though the width of this last wa­ter-​fall from the Amer­ican to the Cana­di­an shore is three miles.

The Rjukan is so grand and unique in its as­pect that any de­scrip­tion falls far short of the re­al­ity, and even a paint­ing can not do jus­tice to it. There are cer­tain won­ders of na­ture that must be seen if one would form any ad­equate con­cep­tion of their beau­ty; and this wa­ter-​fall, which is one of the most wide­ly cel­ebrat­ed in Eu­rope, be­longs to this cat­ego­ry.

These were the very thoughts that were pass­ing through the mind of a tourist who was at that very mo­ment sit­ting perched up­on a rock on the right bank of the Maan, from which spot he could com­mand a near­er and more ex­tend­ed view of the fall.

Nei­ther Joel nor his sis­ter had yet no­ticed him, though he was plain­ly vis­ible from the rock on which they were seat­ed.

In a few min­utes the trav­el­er rose and very im­pru­dent­ly ven­tured out up­on the rocky slope that is round­ed like a dome on the side next the Maan. What the ad­ven­tur­ous tourist wished to see was ev­ident­ly the two cav­erns un­der the fall, the one to the left, which is ev­er filled to the top with a mass of seething foam, and the one to the right, which is al­ways en­shroud­ed in a heavy mist. Pos­si­bly he was even try­ing to as­cer­tain if there were not a third cav­ern mid­way down the fall to ac­count for the fact that the Rjukan at in­ter­vals projects straight out­ward in­to space a mass of wa­ter and spray, mak­ing it ap­pear as if the wa­ters had sud­den­ly been scat­tered in a fine spray over the sur­round­ing fields by some ter­rif­ic ex­plo­sion in the rear of the fall.

And now the dar­ing tourist was slow­ly but per­sis­tent­ly mak­ing his way over the rough and slip­pery ledge of rock, des­ti­tute alike of shrub­bery or grass, know as the Passe de Marie, or the Maristien.

It is more than prob­able, how­ev­er, that he was ig­no­rant of the leg­end that has made this pass so wide­ly know. One day Eystein en­deav­ored to reach his be­trothed, the beau­ti­ful Marie of Ves­fjord­dal, by this dan­ger­ous path. His sweet­heart was hold­ing out her arms to him from the oth­er side of the gorge, when sud­den­ly he lost his foot­ing, fell, slipped fur­ther and fur­ther down the ledge of rock which is as smooth as glass, and dis­ap­peared for­ev­er in the seething rapids of the Maan.

Was this rash trav­el­er about to meet a sim­ilar fate?

It seemed on­ly too prob­able; and in fact he soon per­ceived the dan­ger of his po­si­tion, though not un­til it was too late. Sud­den­ly his foot slipped, he ut­tered a cry, and af­ter rolling near­ly twen­ty feet, he fi­nal­ly suc­ceed­ed in se­cur­ing a hold up­on a pro­ject­ing rock on the very edge of the abyss.

Joel and Hul­da, though they had not yet caught sight of him, heard his cry.

“What is that?” ex­claimed Joel, spring­ing to his feet.

“A cry!” replied Hul­da.

“Yes, a cry of dis­tress.”

“From what di­rec­tion did it come?”

“Let us lis­ten.”

Both looked first to the right, and then to the left of the fall, but they saw noth­ing, though they had cer­tain­ly heard the words “Help! help!” ut­tered dur­ing one of the in­ter­vals be­tween each re­bound of the Rjukan.

The cry was re­peat­ed.

“Joel, some one who is in dan­ger is call­ing for help,” cried Hul­da. “We must go to his aid.”

“Yes, sis­ter; and he can not be far off. But in what di­rec­tion? Where is he? I see no one.”

Hul­da hasti­ly climbed a lit­tle knoll be­hind the mossy rock up­on which she had been sit­ting.

“Joel!” she cried, sud­den­ly.

“Do you see him?”

“There, there!”

As she spoke she point­ed to the im­pru­dent man whose body seemed to be al­most over­hang­ing the abyss. If his foothold up­on a tiny ledge of rock failed him, or he was seized with dizzi­ness, he was lost.

“We must save him!” said Hul­da.

“Yes,” replied Joel, “if we can keep our wits about us we shall per­haps be able to reach him.”

Joel gave a loud shout to at­tract the at­ten­tion of the trav­el­er, who im­me­di­ate­ly turned his head to­ward the spot from which the sound pro­ceed­ed; then the wor­thy fel­low de­vot­ed a few mo­ments to de­cid­ing how he could best res­cue the stranger from his dan­ger­ous po­si­tion.

“You are not afraid, are you, Hul­da?” he asked.

“No, broth­er.”

“You know the Maristien well, do you not?”

“I have crossed it sev­er­al times.”

“Then walk along the brow of the cliff, grad­ual­ly get­ting as near the trav­el­er as you pos­si­bly can; then al­low your­self to slide down gen­tly to­ward him, and take him by the hand, so as to pre­vent him from falling any fur­ther; but do not let him try to lift him­self up, be­cause if he should be seized with ver­ti­go he would cer­tain­ly drag you down with him, and you would both be lost.”

“And you, Joel?”

“While you are travers­ing the brow of the cliff I will creep along the edge of it on the riv­er-​side. I shall reach him about as soon as you do, and if you should slip I shall per­haps be able to pre­vent you both from falling.”

Then, tak­ing ad­van­tage of an­oth­er in­ter­val in the roar­ing of the tor­rent, Joel shout­ed in sten­to­ri­an tones:

“Don't move, sir. Wait; we will try to get to you!”

Hul­da had al­ready dis­ap­peared be­hind the trees that crowned the ledge, in or­der to as­cend the Maristien from the oth­er side of the de­cliv­ity, and Joel soon caught a glimpse of the fast-​re­ced­ing form of the brave girl at the turn in the path where the last trees grew.

He, in turn, at the per­il of his life, had be­gun to creep slow­ly along the shelv­ing edge of the ledge that sur­rounds the Rjukan. What won­der­ful cool­ness, what steadi­ness of foot and of hand were re­quired to thus ad­vance in safe­ty along the edge of an abyss whose bor­ders were drenched with the spray of the cataract!

In a par­al­lel di­rec­tion, but at least one hun­dred feet above his head, Hul­da was ad­vanc­ing oblique­ly in or­der to reach the trav­el­er more eas­ily; but the po­si­tion of the lat­ter was such that she could not see his face, that be­ing turned to­ward the cataract.

Joel, on reach­ing a spot di­rect­ly be­low the un­for­tu­nate man paused, and af­ter plant­ing his foot firm­ly in a small crevice in the rock, called out:

“Hal­lo, sir!”

The trav­el­er turned his head.

“Don't move, sir; don't move an inch, but hold fast!”

“I'll do that, my friend, nev­er fear,” replied the stranger in a tone that re­as­sured Joel. “If I hadn't a good grip, I should have gone to the bot­tom of the Rjukan a quar­ter of an hour ago.”

“My sis­ter is al­so com­ing to help you,” con­tin­ued Joel. “She will take hold of your hand, but don't at­tempt to get up­on your feet un­til I reach you. Don't even move.”

“No more than a rock,” replied the trav­el­er.

Hul­da had al­ready be­gun to de­scend the ledge, care­ful­ly se­lect­ing the less slip­pery parts of the slope with the clear head of a true daugh­ter of the Tele­mark.

And she, too, now called out as Joel had done:

“Hold­fast, sir.”

“Yes; I am hold­ing fast, and I as­sure you that I shall con­tin­ue to do so as long as I can.”

“And above all don't be afraid!” added Hul­da.

“I am not afraid.”

“We'll save you yet!” cried Joel.

“I hope so, in­deed; for by Saint Olaf I shall nev­er suc­ceed in get­ting out of this scrape my­self.”

It was ev­ident that the tourist had lost none of his pres­ence of mind; but his fall had prob­ably dis­abled him, and all he could do now was to keep him­self up­on the nar­row shelf of rock that sep­arat­ed him from the abyss.

Mean­while Hul­da con­tin­ued her de­scent, and in a few min­utes reached the trav­el­er; then, brac­ing her foot against a pro­ject­ing point in the rock, she caught hold of his hand.

The trav­el­er in­vol­un­tar­ily at­tempt­ed to raise him­self a lit­tle.

“Don't move, sir, don't move,” cried Hul­da. “You will be sure to drag me down with you, for I am not strong enough to keep you from falling! You must wait un­til my broth­er reach­es us. When he gets be­tween us and the fall you can then try to get up.”

“That is more eas­ily said than done I fear.”

“Are you so much hurt, sir? I hope you have bro­ken no bones.”

“No; but one leg is bad­ly cut and scratched.”

Joel was about twen­ty yards from them, the round­ed shape of the brow of the cliff hav­ing pre­vent­ed him from join­ing them at once. He was now obliged to climb this round­ed sur­face. This was, of course, the most dif­fi­cult and al­so the most dan­ger­ous part of his task.

“Don't make the slight­est move­ment, Hul­da!” he cried. “If you should both slip while I am not in a po­si­tion to break your fall you would both be killed.”

“You need not fear that, Joel!” replied Hul­da. “Think on­ly of your­self, and may God help you!”

Joel be­gan to crawl slow­ly up the rock, drag­ging him­self along on his bel­ly like a ver­ita­ble rep­tile. Two or three times he nar­row­ly es­caped slid­ing down in­to the abyss be­low, but fi­nal­ly he suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing the trav­el­er's side.

The lat­ter proved to be an el­der­ly but still vig­or­ous-​look­ing man, with a hand­some face, an­imat­ed with a very ge­nial and kind­ly ex­pres­sion.

“You have been guilty of a very im­pru­dent act, sir,” re­marked Joel as soon as he re­cov­ered his breath.

“Im­pru­dent!” re­peat­ed the trav­el­er. “Yes, and as ab­surd as it was im­pru­dent.”

“You have not on­ly risked your life, but--”

“Made you risk yours.”

“Oh! that is my busi­ness,” replied Joel, light­ly. Then he added, in an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent tone: “The thing to be done now is to re­gain the brow of the cliff, but the most dif­fi­cult part of the task is al­ready ac­com­plished.”

“The most dif­fi­cult?”

"Yes, sir. That was to reach you. Now we have on­ly to as­cend a much more grad­ual slope.

“Still, you had bet­ter not place much de­pen­dence up­on me, my boy. I have a leg that isn't of much use to me just now, nor will it be for some time to come I fear.”

“Try to raise your­self a lit­tle.”

“I will glad­ly do so if you will as­sist me.”

“Then take hold of my sis­ter's arm. I will steady you and push you from be­low.”

“Very well, my friends, I will be guid­ed en­tire­ly by you; as you have been so kind as to come to my as­sis­tance, I can not do less than yield you im­plic­it obe­di­ence.”

Joel's plan was car­ried out in the most cau­tious man­ner, and though the as­cent was not made with­out con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ty and dan­ger, all three ac­com­plished it more eas­ily and quick­ly than they had thought pos­si­ble. Be­sides, the in­jury from which the trav­el­er was suf­fer­ing was nei­ther a sprain nor dis­lo­ca­tion, but sim­ply a very bad abra­sion of the skin; con­se­quent­ly, he could use his limbs to much bet­ter pur­pose than he had sup­posed, and ten min­utes lat­er he found him­self safe on the oth­er side of the Maristien.

Once there, he would have been glad to rest awhile un­der the pines that bor­der the up­per _field_ of the Rjukan­fos, but Joel per­suad­ed him to make one more ef­fort. This was to reach a hut hid­den among the trees, a short dis­tance from the rock, on which the broth­er and sis­ter had seat­ed them­selves on first ar­riv­ing at the fall. The trav­el­er yield­ed to their so­lic­ita­tions, and sup­port­ed on one side by Hul­da, and on the oth­er by Joel, he fi­nal­ly suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing the door of the hum­ble dwelling.

“Let us go in, sir,” said Hul­da. “You must want to rest a mo­ment.”

“The mo­ment will prob­ably be pro­longed to a quar­ter of an hour.”

“Very well, sir; but af­ter­ward you must con­sent to ac­com­pa­ny us to Dal.”

“To Dal? Why, that is the very place I was go­ing to!”

“Can it be that you are the tourist who was ex­pect­ed from the north?” asked Joel.

“Pre­cise­ly.”

“Had I fore­seen what was go­ing to hap­pen, I should have gone to the oth­er side of the Rjukan­fos to meet you.”

“That would have been a good idea, my brave fel­low. You would have saved me from a fool­hardy act un­par­don­able at my age.”

“Or at any age,” replied Hul­da.

The three en­tered the hut which was oc­cu­pied by a fam­ily of peas­ants, a fa­ther and two daugh­ters, who re­ceived their un­ex­pect­ed guests with great cor­dial­ity.

Joel was able to sat­is­fy him­self that the trav­el­er had sus­tained no in­jury be­yond a se­vere abra­sion of the skin a lit­tle be­low the knee; but though the wound would ne­ces­si­tate a week's rest, the limb was nei­ther bro­ken nor dis­lo­cat­ed.

Some ex­cel­lent milk, an abun­dance of straw­ber­ries, and a lit­tle black bread were of­fered and ac­cept­ed. Joel gave in­con­testable proofs of an ex­cel­lent ap­petite, and though Hul­da eat al­most noth­ing, the trav­el­er proved a match for her broth­er.

“My ex­er­tions have giv­en me a fa­mous ap­petite,” he re­marked; “but I must ad­mit that my at­tempt to tra­verse the Maristien was an act of the gross­est fol­ly. To play the part of the un­for­tu­nate Eystein when one is old enough to be his fa­ther--and even his grand­fa­ther--is ab­surd in the high­est de­gree.”

“So you know the leg­end?” said Hul­da.

“Of course. My nurse used to sing me to sleep with it in the hap­py days when I still had a nurse. Yes, I know the sto­ry, my brave girl, so I am all the more to blame for my im­pru­dence. Now, my friends, Dal seems a long way off to a crip­ple like my­self. How do you pro­pose to get me there?”

“Don't wor­ry about that, sir,” replied Joel. “Our kar­iol is wait­ing for us at the end of the road, about three hun­dred yards from here.”

“Hum! three hun­dred yards!”

“But down­hill all the way,” added Hul­da.

“Oh, in that case, I shall do very well if you will kind­ly lend me an arm.”

“Why not two, as we have four at your dis­pos­al?” re­spond­ed Joel.

“We will say two then. It won't cost me any more, will it?”

“It will cost you noth­ing.”

“Ex­cept my thanks; and that re­minds me that I have not yet thanked you.”

“For what, sir?” in­quired Joel.

“Mere­ly for sav­ing my life at the risk of your own.”

“Are you quite ready to start?” in­quired Hul­da, ris­ing to es­cape any fur­ther ex­pres­sion of grat­itude.

“Cer­tain­ly, cer­tain­ly. I am more than will­ing to be guid­ed by the wish­es of the oth­er mem­bers of the par­ty.”

The trav­el­er set­tled the mod­est charge made by the oc­cu­pants of the cot­tage; then, sup­port­ed by Joel and Hul­da, he be­gan the de­scent of the wind­ing path lead­ing to the riv­er bank.

The de­scent was not ef­fect­ed with­out many ex­cla­ma­tions of pain; but these ex­cla­ma­tions in­vari­ably ter­mi­nat­ed in a hearty laugh, and at last they reached the saw-​mill, where Joel im­me­di­ate­ly pro­ceed­ed to har­ness the horse in­to the kar­iol.

Five min­utes lat­er the trav­el­er was in­stalled in the ve­hi­cle, with Hul­da be­side him.

“But I must have tak­en your seat,” he re­marked to Joel.

“A seat I re­lin­quish to you with the ut­most will­ing­ness.”

“But per­haps by a lit­tle crowd­ing we might make room for you?”

“No, no, I have my legs, sir--a guide's legs. They are as good as any wheels.”

Joel placed him­self at the horse's head, and the lit­tle par­ty start­ed for Dal. The re­turn trip was a gay one, at least on the part of the trav­el­er, who al­ready seemed to con­sid­er him­self an old friend of the Hansen fam­ily. Be­fore they reached their des­ti­na­tion they found them­selves call­ing their com­pan­ion M. Sil­vius; and that gen­tle­man un­cer­emo­ni­ous­ly called them Hul­da and Joel, as if their ac­quain­tance had been one of long stand­ing.

About four o'clock the lit­tle bel­fry of Dal be­came vis­ible through the trees, and a few min­utes af­ter­ward the horse stopped in front of the inn. The trav­el­er alight­ed from the kar­iol, though not with­out con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ty. Dame Hansen has­tened to the door to re­ceive him, and though he did not ask for the best room in the house, it was giv­en to him all the same.