ven the whitened earth at twenty paces from the spot where
the party stood collected in a shivering group. The young soldier threw
open the cloaks and mantles in which Christine was enveloped, and the
half-unconscious girl sank on his shoulder, like a drowsy infant that was
willing to seek its slumbers in the arms of one it loved.

"Christine!--my sister!--my poor, my much-abused, angelic sister!"
murmured Sigismund, happily for his secret in a voice that only reached
the ears of Adelheid. "Awake! Christine; for the love of our excellent and
affectionate mother, exert thyself. Awake! Christine, in the name of God,
awake!"

"Awake, dearest Christine!" exclaimed Adelheid, throwing herself from the
saddle, and folding the smiling but benumbed girl to her bosom. "God
protect me from the pang of feeling that thy loss should be owing to my
wish to lead thee amid these cruel and inhospitable rocks! Christine, if
thou hast love or pity for me, awake!"

"Look to the maids!" hurriedly said Pierre, who found that he was fast
touching on one of those mountain catastrophes, of which, in the course of
his life, he had been the witness of a few of fearful consequences. "Look
to all the females, for he who now sleeps, dies!"

The muleteers soon stripped the two domestics of their outer coverings,
and it was immediately proclaimed that both were in imminent danger, one
having already lost all consciousness. A timely application of the flask
of Pierre, and the efforts of the muleteers, succeeded so far in restoring
life as to remove the grounds of immediate apprehension; though it was
apparent to the least instructed of them all, that half an hour more of
exposure would probably complete the fatal work that had so actively and
vigorously commenced. To add to the horror of this conviction, each member
of the party, not excepting the muleteers, was painfully conscious of the
escape of that vital warmth whose total flight was death.

In this strait all dismounted. They felt that the occasion was one of
extreme jeopardy, that nothing could save them but resolution, and that
every minute of time was getting to be of the last importance. Each
female, Adelheid included, was placed between two of the other sex, and,
supported in this manner, Pierre called loudly and in a manful voice for
the whole to proceed. The beasts were driven after them by one of the
muleteers.

The progress of travellers, feeble as Adelheid and her companions, on a