ssaint left it to Mars Plaisir to answer this question; which he did
with indignant volubility, describing the uses and the beauties of the
heights of Saint Domingo, from the loftiest peaks which intercept the
hurricane, to the lowest, crested with forts or spreading their
blossoming groves to the verge of the valleys.

"We too have fortresses on our heights," said the officer. "Indeed, you
will be in one of them before night. When we are on the other side of
Pontarlier, we will look about us a little."

"Then, on the other side of Pontarlier, we shall meet no people,"
observed Mars Plaisir.

"People! Oh, yes! we have people everywhere in France."

When Pontarlier was passed, and the windows of the carriage were thrown
open, the travellers perceived plainly enough why this degree of liberty
was allowed. The region was so wild, that none were likely to come
hither in search of the captives. There were inhabitants; but few
likely to give information as to who had passed along the road. There
were charcoal-burners up on the hill-side; there were women washing
clothes in the stream which rushed along, far below in the valley; the
miller was in his mill, niched in the hollow beside the waterfall; and
there might still be inmates in the convent which stood just below the
firs, on the knoll to the left of the road. But by the wayside, there
were none who, with curious eyes, might mark, and with eager tongue
report, the complexion of the strangers who were rapidly whirled along
towards Joux.

Toussaint shivered as the chill mountain air blew in. Perhaps what he
saw chilled him no less than what he felt. He might have unconsciously
expected to see something like the teeming slopes of his own mountains,
the yellow ferns, the glittering rocks, shining like polished metal in
the sun. Instead of these, the scanty grass was of a blue-green; the
stunted firs were black; and the patches of dazzling white intermingled
with them formed a contrast of colour hideous to the eye of a native of
the tropics.

"That is snow," exclaimed Mars Plaisir to his master, with the pride of
superior experience.

"I know it," replied Toussaint, quietly.

The carriage now laboured up a steep ascent. The _brave homme_ who
drove alighted on one side, and the guard on the other, and walked up
the hill, to relieve the horses. The guard gathered such flowers as met
his eye; and handed into the carriage a blue gentian which had till now
lin