BETRAYAL AND SEIZURE OF HOFER.
War was now resumed at all points; but the forces brought from all sides against the Tyrol were so immense that no hope remained to the inhabitants but by deeds of glory to throw a last radiance around their fall. The Tyrolese fought with desperate valor, but their heroism was unavailing. The superior forces of the enemy were everywhere victorious. The artillery of the Bavarians and French thinned the ranks of the mountaineers from day to day; whole ranks of the Tyrolese being mowed down by the balls of the enemy. They fled panic-struck into the mountains. The victorious invaders penetrated farther and farther into the interior of the country;burning towns and villages marked the route which they followed, and wails and lamentations rent the air wherever they made their appearance.
Before the middle of December all resistance had been overpowered.
The enemy stalked in a merciless manner over the gory, reeking, groaning Tyrol, and pursued relentlessly all who had dared to rise against him. He had promised oblivion and forgiveness in return for peaceful submission; but as the Tyrolese had not submitted, but continued the struggle, the enemy now threatened to revenge himself and punish the vanquished.
A furious chase now commenced. Every one who had been seized with arms in hand was shot; every one who concealed one of the pursued patriots in his house was executed, and his house was burned down.
The leaders of the Tyrolese had fled into the mountains, but the French generals promised large rewards for the heads of the most influential patriots; and the soldiers traversed the country, impelled by thirst for revenge and gain, spying everywhere for the outlawed mountaineers, and ascending even to the snow-clad summits of the mountains in order to obtain the large rewards. As yet, however, they had not succeeded in seizing one of the pursued chiefs. The French generals had vainly promised a reward of ten thousand florins for the apprehension of Andreas Hofer, and rewards of five thousand florins for the seizure of Joseph Spechbacher, Anthony Wallner, and Joachim Haspinger. They had disappeared, and the patrols and soldiers, who were hunting for them, had not yet been able to discover the hiding-place of any of the four great chiefs of the insurrection. The mountains, those natural fortresses of the Tyrol, protected the outlawed commanders; and in the Alpine huts, amidst the chamois and vultures, which alone saw and knew their hiding-places, there were no traitors.
Retiring to his native valley, Andreas Hofer long eluded the search of the victors. His place of concealment was a solitary Alpine hut, four leagues distant from his home, in general inaccessible from the snow which surrounded it. Love had accompanied Andreas to this inhospitable spot. His wife and his son John were with him, and so was Cajetan Doeninger, his faithful secretary. Love had accompanied him to the Alpine hut of his friend Pfandler; love watched over him in the valley below. Many peasants there were well aware of Hofer's place of concealment, but no one betrayed him, no one was tempted by the reward of ten thousand florins which Baraguay d'Hilliers, the French general, offered for Hofer's apprehension. They often saw Pfandler's servants, loaded with all sorts of provisions, wending their way slowly and painfully up the snow-clad Alp; but they averted their heads, as though they did not want to see anything, and prayed God in a low tone to protect the messengers who conveyed food to Hofer and his dear ones. The peasants in the valley forbore carefully to speak among each other of what they knew; only they treated Pfandler with reverential tenderness, shook hands with him quietly, and whispered, "God bless you and him!" At times, on a clear winter day, when thin smoke curled up suddenly from the Alp, the peasants in the valley looked up sighingly and whispered compassionately, "They have built a fire in their hut. The cold is so severe. God bless them!" But whenever one whom they did not trust stepped up to them, wondering at the smoke, and saying that somebody was concealed up there, and had built a fire in order not to freeze to death, the others laughed at him, and said there was no smoke at all, but only snow blown up by the storm.
One day, however, a stranger arrived in the valley, and asked whisperingly for Andreas Hofer, to whom, he said, he would bring assistance and safety. At first no one replied to him; but he showed them a paper, bearing the name and seal of the Archduke John, and containing the following words, written by the prince himself: "Help my messenger to find Andreas Hofer, and bring him assistance and safety."On reading this, the peasants distrusted him no longer. They glanced furtively up to the Schneeberg, pointed to the two wanderers, loaded with baskets, who were toiling up the mountain through the snow, and whispered almost inaudibly, "Follow them!"The messenger did so. He climbed after the two servants, and ascended with them the inhospitable, dreary, and deserted heights.
At length he arrived in front of the Alpine hut; he knocked at the door, and asked admittance in the name of God and the Archduke John.
The door opened immediately, and on the threshold appeared Hofer's tall, bearded form, as erect and vigorous as it had been in the days of his splendor, and his mild, honest eye greeted the new-comer.