le
tongue. Between the hospice and Berizal two hundred metres of road had
been completely washed away. The afternoon diligence had just got
through by a miracle an hour before the accident occurred; before
anything else could pass it would take at least ten or twelve hours'
hard work, through the night, before the laborers now being
requisitioned by the commune could possibly provide even a temporary
passage.

Ashe in despair went into the inn to speak with the landlord, and found
that unless he was prepared to abandon books and papers, and make a push
for it over mountain paths covered deep in fresh snow, there was no
possible escape from the dilemma. He must stay the night. The navvies
were already on their way; and as soon as ever the road was passable he
should know. For not even a future Prime Minister of England could Herr
Ludwig do more.

He and Dell went gloomily up the narrow stone stairs of the inn to look
at the bedrooms, which were low-roofed and primitive, penetrated
everywhere by the roar of a stream which came down close behind the inn.
Through the open door of one of the rooms Ashe saw the foaming mass,
framed as it were in a window, and almost in the house.

He chose two small rooms looking on the street, and bade Dell get a fire
lit in one of them, a bed moved out, an arm-chair moved in, and as large
a table set for him as the inn could provide, while he took a stroll
before dinner. He had some important letters to answer, and he pointed
out to Dell the bag which contained them.

Then he stepped out into the muddy street, which was still a confusion
of horses, vehicles, and men, and, turning up a path behind the inn, was
soon in solitude. An evening of splendor! Nature was still in a tragic,
declamatory mood--sending piled thunder-clouds of dazzling white across
a sky extravagantly blue, and throwing on the high snow-fields and
craggy tops a fierce, flame-colored light. The valley was resonant with
angry sound, and the village, now in shadow, with its slender, crumbling
campanile, seemed like a cowering thing over which the eagle has passed.

The grandeur and the freshness, the free, elemental play of stream and
sky and mountain, seized upon a man in whom the main impulses of life
were already weary, and filled him with an involuntary physical delight.
He noticed the flowers at his feet, in the drenched grass which was
already lifting up its battered stalks, and along the margins of the
streams--