The honest Swiss lad, obtuse in his understanding, but kind and faithful in his disposition, blubbered as his employer spoke, and, afraid to offer further remonstrance or opposition, saw his temporary master prepare himself to traverse the same fatal precipice over the verge of which his ill-fated son had seemed to pass to the fate which, with all the wildness of a parent's anguish, his father was hastening to share. Suddenly there was heard, from beyond the fatal angle from which the mass of stone had been displaced by Arthur's rash ascent, the loud hoarse sound of one of those huge horns made out of the spoils of the urus, or wild bull, of Switzerland, which in ancient times announced the terrors of the charge of these mountaineers, and, indeed, served them in war instead of all musical instruments. "Hold, sir, hold!" exclaimed the Grison. "Yonder is a signal from Geierstein. Some one will presently come to our assistance, and show us the safer way to seek for your son.--And look you--at yon green bush that is glimmering through the mist, St. Antonio preserve me, as I see a white cloth displayed there! it is just beyond the point where the rock fell." The father endeavoured to fix his eyes on the spot, but they filled so fast with tears that they could not discern the object which the guide pointed out.--"It is all in vain," he said, dashing the tears from his eyes--"I shall never see more of him than his lifeless remains!" "You will--you will see him in life!" said the Grison. "St. Antonio wills it so--See, the white cloth waves again!" "Some remnant of his garments," said the despairing father,--"some wretched memorial of his fate.--No, my eyes see it not--I have beheld the fall of my house--would that the vultures of these crags had rather torn them from their sockets!" "Yet look again," said the Swiss; "the cloth hangs not loose upon a bough--I can see that it is raised on the end of a staff, and is distinctly waved to and fro. Your son makes a signal that he is safe." "And if it be so," said the traveller, clasping his hands together, "blessed be the eyes that see it, and the tongue that tells it! If we find my son, and find him alive, this day shall be a lucky one for thee too." "Nay," answered the lad, "I only ask that you will abide still, and act by counsel, and I will hold myself quit for my services. Only, it is not creditable to an honest lad to have people lose themselves by their own wilfulness; for the blame, after all, is sure to fall upon the guide, as if he could prevent old Pontius from shaking the mist from his brow, or banks of earth from slipping down into the valley at a time, or young harebrained gallants from walking upon precipices as narrow as the edge of a knife, or madmen, whose grey hairs might make them wiser, from drawing daggers like bravos in Lombardy."