sight of the figure of Clothilde, in the arms of a stranger flying toward the face of the mountain. He rushed wildly after.
A fearful crash succeeded; the avalanche had crossed the plateau, and swept down the fir-trees; the trunks splintered before it, like summer brambles; the detached rocks were hurled down in showers; immense masses of ice followed quickly after, roaring over the débris of the forest, and, with a crash that shook the whole valley, reached the meadow below. Swift as lightning, whole acres of the green sod were torn up by the wreck of the forest-trees and rocks, and huge, gleaming masses of ice; and then, more slowly, with a low murmur, like a requiem, came the flow of lesser snowy fragments, covering the great ruin with a mantle of white.
Poor Conrad Friedland was buried beneath!
The villagers had all fled in safety; but the green meadow of the fêtes was a meadow no longer.
Those who were hindermost in the flight said they saw the stranger in white bearing Clothilde, in her white robes, up the face of the mountain. It is certain that she was never seen in the valley again; and the poor old herdsman, her father, died shortly after, leaving his stock of dun cows and his fifty kids to the village curé, to buy masses for the rest of his daughter's soul.
"This," said the German, "is the story of the Bride of the Ice-King;" and he re-lighted his pipe.
The storm had now passed over, and the stars were out. Before us was the giant wall of the Jungfrau, with a little rattle of glacier artillery occasionally breaking the silence of the night. To the left was the tall peak of the Wetterhorn, gleaming white in the starlight; and, far away to the right, we could see the shining glaciers at the head of the Lauterbrunnen valley.
If I ever pass that way again, I shall ask the guides to show me the avalanche under which poor Conrad, the hunter, lies buried.
