ed Katte's children, and the
weight of the sin was like lead on his heart, and he would not kill good
Waldmar too.

His little lantern did not show much light, and as he went higher upward
he lost sight of the moon. The cold was nothing to him, because the
clear still air was one in which he had been reared; and the darkness he
did not mind, because he was used to that also; but the weight of sorrow
upon him he scarcely knew how to bear, and how to find two tiny lambs in
this vast waste of silence and shadow would have puzzled and wearied
older minds than his. Garibaldi and all his household, old soldiers
tried and true, sought all night once upon Caprera on such a quest in
vain. If he could only have awakened his brother Stefan to ask him which
way they had gone! But then, to be sure, he remembered, Stefan must have
told that to all those who had been looking for the lambs from sunset to
nightfall. All alone he began the ascent.

Time and again, in the glad spring-time and the fresh summer weather, he
had driven his flock upward to eat the grass that grew in the clefts of
the rocks and on the broad green alps. The sheep could not climb to the
highest points, but the goats did, and he with them. Time and again he
had lain on his back in these uppermost heights, with the lower clouds
behind him and the black wings of the birds and the crows almost
touching his forehead, as he lay gazing up into the blue depth of the
sky and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

He would never dream any more now, he thought to himself. His dreams had
cost Katte her lambs, and the world of the dead Findelkind was gone for
ever: gone all the heroes and knights; gone all the faith and the
force; gone every one who cared for the dear Christ and the poor in
pain.

The bells of Zirl were ringing midnight. Findelkind heard, and wondered
that only two hours had gone by since his mother had kissed him in his
bed. It seemed to him as if long, long nights had rolled away and he had
lived a hundred years. He did not feel any fear of the dark calm night,
lit now and then by silvery gleams of moon and stars. The mountain was
his old familiar friend, and the ways of it had no more terror for him
than these hills here used to have for the bold heart of Kaiser Max.
Indeed, all he thought of was Katte--Katte and the lambs. He knew the
way that the sheep-tracks ran--the sheep could not climb so high as the
goats--and he knew too that little Stefan could not cl