oiling torrent; but his
senses did not leave him, and he felt himself hurried along with the
furious speed of the mad waters. Thus nearly a minute passed; and then
his headlong course was suddenly arrested by the boughs of a tree,
which, having given way at the root, bent over into the torrent. He
clung to the boughs as if they were arms stretched out to rescue him; he
raised himself from amidst the turbid waters--and in a few moments
reached a bank which shelved upward to the edge of a dense forest.

Precisely on the opposite or inner side there was an opening in the
rocks, and Wagner's eye could trace upward a steep but still practicable
path, doubtless formed by some torrent of the spring, which was now
dried up amidst the mountains above,--that path reaching to the very
basis of the volcano.

Thus, had circumstances permitted him to exercise his patience and
institute a longer search among the defiles formed by the crags and
rocks around the conical volcano, he would have discovered a means of
safe egress from that region without daring the desperate leap of the
chasm, desperate even for him, although he bore a charmed life, because
his limbs might have been broken against the rugged sides of the
precipice.

Between the opening to the steep path just spoken of, and the shelving
bank on which Wagner now stood, there was so narrow a space, that the
bent tree stretched completely across the torrent; thus any one,
descending from the mountains by the natural pathway, might cross by
means of the tree to the side which Fernand had gained.

"This, then, must have been the route by which the villain Stephano
emerged from the mountains," he said to himself, "and the fiend deceived
me when he declared that I could not reach the plains below without his
aid."

Such were his reflections as he hurried up the shelving bank: and when
he reached the summit his glance embraced a scene already described to
the reader.

For, flying wildly on toward the forest, was his beauteous Nisida,
scattering flowers in her whirlwind progress, those flowers that had ere
now decked her hair, her neck and her waist.

At some distance behind her was the bandit Stephano; with sword in hand
he still maintained the chase, though breathless and ready to sink from
exhaustion. Not an instant did Wagner tarry upon the top of the bank
which he had reached; but darting toward Nisida, who was now scarce
fifty yards from him, he gave vent to an ejacula