"I fear her not!" exclaimed Rudy. "She had to yield me up when I was a baby, and I am not going to yield myself up to her now that I am a man."
It grew darker, and the rain poured down; then came the snow, dazzling and bewildering.
"Take my hand," said the maiden, "I will help you;" and she touched him with her ice-cold fingers.
[Illustration: "Have you a sweetheart?" said Rudy.]
"You needn't help me!" returned Rudy; "I don't need a girl to teach me to climb!" and he hurried on, leaving her behind. The snow came down all around him, the wind shrieked, and he heard strange sounds of laughing and singing behind him. He believed she was one of the spirits in the Ice-Maiden's train, of whom he had heard tales when he spent the night up in the mountains as a boy.
The snow ceased to fall, and he was now above the clouds. He looked behind him, but saw nobody; yet he heard a strange singing and yodeling that he did not like, as it did not sound human.
When Rudy was quite at the highest ridge, from which the way tended downwards towards the Rhone valley, he saw above Chamonix, in a patch of blue sky, two bright stars shining and twinkling; they reminded him of Babette, and of his own good fortune, and the thought made him feel quite warm.
[Illustration: Rudy believed she was one of the spirits in the Ice-Maiden's train.]
"What splendid things you have brought back with you!" cried his old foster-mother; and her eagle eyes sparkled, and her lean neck waved backwards and forwards more than ever. "You are lucky, Rudy! Let me kiss you, my dear boy!"
And Rudy submitted to be kissed; but he looked as if he regarded it as a thing which had to be put up with. "What a handsome fellow you are getting, Rudy!" said the old woman.
"Don't talk such nonsense," Rudy replied, laughing; but nevertheless he liked to hear it.
"I say it again," said the old woman. "You are very lucky!"
"Perhaps you may be right," he rejoined, for he was thinking of Babette.
He had never before been so anxious to go down the valley.
"They must have gone home," he said to himself. "They were to have been back two days ago. I must go to Bex."
So Rudy went to Bex, and found his friends at home at the mill. They received him kindly, and had brought a message for him from the family at Interlaken. Babette did not speak much; she was very quiet, but her eyes spoke volumes, and that satisfied Rudy. Even the miller, who had always led the conversation, and who had always had his remarks and jokes laughed at on account of his wealth, seemed to delight in hearing of all Rudy's adventures in his hunting; and Rudy described the difficulties and perils which the chamois-hunters have to face among the mountains--how they must cling to, or creep over, the narrow ledges of snow which are frozen on to the mountain sides, and make their way over the snow bridges which span deep chasms in the rocks. And Rudy's eyes sparkled as he was relating these hunting adventures, the intelligence and activity of the chamois, and the dangers of the tempest and the avalanche. He perceived as he went on that the miller grew increasingly interested in his wild life, and that the old man paid especial attention to his account of the bearded vulture and the royal eagle.