St. Gotthard and the Simplon, the guides and
mule-drivers differed greatly; and both Passes
were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers
from having the benefit of any recent experience
of either. Besides which, they well knew that a
fall of snow might altogether change the
described conditions in a single hour, even if they
were correctly stated. But, on the whole, the
Simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route,
Vendale decided to take it. Obenreizer bore
little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely
spoke.

To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level
margin of the lake to Vevay, so into the
winding valley between the spurs of the
mountains, and into the valley of the Rhône. The
sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled
on, through the day, through the night, became
as the wheels of a great clock, recording the
hours. No change of weather varied the
journey, after it had hardened into a sullen
frost. In a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the
Alpine ranges; and they saw enough of snow
on nearer and much lower hill-tops and hill-
sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of
lake, torrent, and waterfall, and make the
villages look discoloured and dirty. But no
snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on
the road. The stalking along the valley of
more or less of white mist, changing on their
hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety
between them and the gloomy sky. And still
by day, and still by night, the wheels. And still
they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, to
the burden, altered from the burden of the
Rhine: "The time is gone for robbing him
alive, and I must murder him."

They came, at length, to the poor little
town of Brieg, at the foot of the Simplon.
They came there after dark, but yet could see
how dwarfed men's works and men became with
the immense mountains towering over them.
Here they must lie for the night; and here was
warmth of fire, and lamp, and dinner, and wine,
and after-conference resounding, with guides
and drivers. No human creature had come
across the Pass for four days. The snow above
the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage,
and not hard enough for sledge. There was
snow in the sky. There had been snow in the
sky for days past, and the marvel was that it
had not fallen, and the certainty was that it
must fall. No vehicle could cross. The journey
might be tried on mules, or it might be tried
on foot; but the best guides must be paid
danger-price in either case, and that, too,
whether they succeeded in taking the two
travellers across, or turned for safety and
brought them back.

In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part
whatever. He sat silently smoking by the fire
until the room was cleared and Vendale referred
to him.

"Bah! I am weary of these poor devils and
their trade," he said, in reply. "Always the same
story. It is the story of their trade to-day, as it
was the story of their trade when I was a ragged
boy. What do you and I want? We want a
knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. We
want no guide; we should guide him; he would
not guide us. We leave our portmanteaus here,
and we cross together. We have been on the
mountains together before now, and I am
mountain-born, and I know this Pass—Pass!—
rather High Road!—by heart. We will leave
these poor devils, in pity, to trade with others;
but they must not delay us to make a pretence
of earning money. Which is all they mean."

Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and
to cut the knot: active, adventurous, bent on
getting forward, and therefore very susceptible
to the last hint: readily assented. Within two
hours, they had purchased what they wanted for
the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and
lay down to sleep.

At break of day, they found half the town
collected in the narrow street to see them
depart. The people talked together in groups;
the guides and drivers whispered apart, and
looked up at the sky; no one wished them a
good journey.

As they began the ascent, a gleam of sun
shone from the otherwise unaltered sky, and
for a moment turned the tin spires of the town
to silver.

"A good omen!" said Vendale (though it
died out while he spoke). "Perhaps our
example will open the Pass on this side."

"No; we shall not be followed," returned
Obenreizer, looking up at the sky and back at
the valley. "We shall be alone up yonder."

ON THE MOUNTAIN.

The road was fair enough for stout walkers,
and the air grew lighter and easier to breathe
as the two ascended. But the settled gloom
remained as it had remained for days back.
Nature seemed to have come to a pause. The
sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight,
was troubled by having to wait so long for the
change, whatever it might be, that impended.
The silence was as palpable and heavy as the
lowering clouds—or rather cloud, for there
seemed to be but one in all the sky, and that
one covering the whole of it.

Although the light was thus dismally shrouded,
the prospect was not obscured. Down in the
valley of the Rhône behind them, the stream
could be traced through all its many windings,
oppressively sombre and solemn in its one
leaden hue, a colourless waste. Far and high
above them, glaciers and suspended avalanches
overhung the spots where they must pass
by-and-by; deep and dark below them on their
right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent;
tremendous mountains arose in every vista. The
gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of
changing light or a solitary ray of sun, was yet
terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of
two lonely men might shrink a little, if they
had to win their way for miles and hours among
a legion of silent and motionless men—mere
men like themselves—all looking at them with
fixed and frowning front. But how much
more, when the legion is of Nature's mightiest