tired, and before he knew what was happening, she
had him in the saddle on his _ane_. So they went off, and where they
will pass the night, their saints alone know, for it is all but
certain that they will never get such animals as those even as far as
the Cantine de Proz."

"They were going in our direction, then?" I said. "We shall pass them
on the way presently."

"I do not doubt it, Monsieur, though they had half an hour's start."

"Were the boy and the donkey-woman alone? No tutor with them?"

"Tutor, Monsieur? The poor young gentleman has a tutor and a duenna in
Innocentina. I wish him joy of her."

"I wish her joy of him," said I, remembering my wrongs. But soon I
forgot them and all other troubles past and present, in surrendering
my spirit to the glory of the scene. Joseph had his triumph, for the
surprise he had kept up his sleeve was out at last. St. Bernard had me
at his feet, and held me there. The wild and gloomy splendour of the
Pass struck at my heart, and fired my imagination. Even the Simplon
had nothing like this to give. The Simplon at its finest sang a paean
to civilisation; it glorified the science of engineering, and told you
that it was a triumph of modernity. But this strange, unkempt Pass,
with its inadequate road,--now overhanging a sheer precipice, now
dipping down steeply towards the wild bed of its sombre river,--this
Great St. Bernard, seemed a secret way back into other centuries,
savage and remote. I felt shame that I had patronised it earlier, with
condescending admiration of some prettinesses. No wonder that Joseph
had smiled and held his peace, knowing what was to come. There was the
old road, the Roman road, along which Napoleon had led his staggering
thousands. There were his forts, scarcely yet crumbled into ruin. I
saw the army, a straggling procession of haggard ghosts, following
always, and falling as they followed, enacting again for me the
passing scene of death and anguish. I was one of the men. I struggled
on, because Napoleon needed all his soldiers. Then weakness crushed
me, like a weight of iron. A mist before my eyes shut out the opposite
precipice with its sparse pines, and flashing waterfalls, the mountain
heights beyond, and the merciless blue sky. This was death. Who cared?
The echo of thirty thousand feet was in my ears as they passed on,
leaving me to die by the roadside, as I had left others before.

I started, and waked from my dream. It was a joyful shock