!

VIII.

THE MURDER ON THE ALPS.

And so, with Mr. Pisgah on the road to glory, Mr. Simp on the smooth
sea, Mr. Freckle in the debtor's jail, Mr. Risque behind his
four-in-hand, and Mr. Lees in the charity grave, let us sit with the two
remaining colonists in the cabriolet at Bellinzona; for it is the month
of April, and they are to cross the great St. Gothard _en route_ for
Paris. Here is the scene: a gloomy stone building for the diligence
company; two great yellow diligences, empty and unharnessed in the area
before; one other diligence, packed full, with the horses' heads turned
northward, and the blue-nosed Swiss clerk calling out the names of
passengers; a half-dozen cabriolets looking at each other irresolutely
and facing all possible ways; two score of unwashed loungers, in red
neck-kerchiefs and velvet jackets, smoking rank, rakish, black cigars;
several streets of equal crookedness and filthiness abutting against a
grimy church, whence beggars, old women, and priests emerge continually;
and far above all, as if suspended in the air, a grim, battlemented
castle, a defence, as it seems, against the snowy mountains which march
upon Bellinzona from every side to crush its orchards and vineyards and
drown it in the marshes of Lago Maggiore.

"_Diligenza compito!_" cries the clerk, moving toward the waiting
cabriolet--"Signore Hugenoto."

"Here!" replies a small, consequential-looking person, reconnoitring the
interior of the vehicle.

"Le Signore Plaedo!"

"Ci," responds a dark, erect gentleman, striding forward and saying, in
clear Italian, "Are there no other passengers?"

"None," answered the clerk; "you will have a good time together; please
remember the guard!"

The guard, however, was in advance, a tall person, wrapped to the eyes
in fur, wearing a silver bugle in front of his cap, and covered with
buff breeches.

He flourished his whip like a fencing-master, moved in a cloud of
cigar-smoke, and, as he placed his bare hand upon the manes of his
horses, they reined back, as if it burned or frosted them.

"My ancestry," says the small gentleman, "encourage no imposition. Shall
we give the fellow a franc?"

The other had already given double the sum, and it was odd, now that one
looked at him, how pale and hard had grown his features.

"God bless me, Andy!" cries the little person, stopping short; "you have
not had your breakfast to-day; apply my smelling-bottle to your nose;
you are s