your ideal like this? I told you in Florence of the great poet Dante. You have here at a glance more beauty and dread conjoined than even his mad fancy could conjure up. That is the Tessino, braining itself in cataracts. Yonder, where the clouds make a golden lake, laving forests of firs, lies Italy as the Goths first beheld it, with their spears quivering. See how the eagles beat the mist beneath!—that was a symbol that the Roman standards should be rent." The other, half in charm, half in awe, listened like one spell-bound, with his fingers tingling and his eyeballs throbbing. "This silence," said the elder, "is more freezing to me than the bitterness of the cold. The very snow-flakes are dumb; nothing makes discord but the avalanche; it is always twilight; men lie down in the snows to die, but they are numb and cannot cry."[Pg 76] [Pg 76] "Be still," replied the other, "your talk is strangely out of place. I feel as if my ancestors in their shrouds were beside me." "You are not wrong," cried the greater, raising his voice till it became shrill and terrible; "your last moments are passing; that yawning ravine is your grave. I told you an hour ago how one bad, dark deed would redeem me. It is done! I have robbed you, and your death is essential to my safety." Hugenot sank upon the snow of the parapet, speechless and almost lifeless. He clasped his hands, but could not raise his head; the whole scene faded from his eye. If he had been weak before, he was impotent now. The strong man held him aloft by the shoulders with an iron grasp, and his cold eye gave evidence to the horrible validity of his words. "I do not lie or play, Hugenot," he said, in the same clear voice; "I have premeditated this deed for many weeks. You are doomed! Only a miracle can help you. The dangers of the pass will be my exculpation; it will be surmised that you fell into the ravine. There will be no marks of violence upon you but those of the sharp stones. We have been close comrades. Only Omniscience can have seen premeditation. I have brought you into this wilderness to slay you!" The victim had recovered sufficiently to catch a part of this confession. His lips framed only one reply—the dying man's last straw: "After death!" he said; "have you thought of that?"
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