They had for some time laboured upward and
onward through the snow—which was now
above their knees in the track, and of unknown
depth elsewhere—and they were still labouring
upward and onward through the most frightful
part of that tremendous desolation, when snow
began to fall. At first, but a few flakes
descended slowly and steadily. After a little
while the fall grew much denser, and
suddenly it began without apparent cause to whirl
itself into spiral shapes. Instantly ensuing
upon this last change, an icy blast came roaring
at them, and every sound and force imprisoned
until now was let loose.

One of the dismal galleries through which the
road is carried at that perilous point, a cave eked
out by arches of great strength, was near at
hand. They struggled into it, and the storm
raged wildly. The noise of the wind, the
noise of the water, the thundering down of
displaced masses of rock and snow, the awful
voices with which not only that gorge but every
gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed to
be suddenly endowed, the darkness as of night,
the violent revolving of the snow which beat
and broke it into spray and blinded them,
the madness of everything around insatiate
for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious
violence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling
sounds for silence: these were things, on
the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the blood,
though the fierce wind, made actually solid by
ice and snow, had failed to chill it.

Obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery
without ceasing, signed to Vendale to help him
unbuckle his knapsack. They could see each
other, but could not have heard each other
speak. Vendale complying, Obenreizer
produced his bottle of wine, and poured some out,
motioning Vendale to take that for warmth's
sake, and not brandy. Vendale again complying,
Obenreizer seemed to drink after him,
and the two walked backwards and forwards
side by side; both well knowing that to rest or
sleep would be to die.

The snow came driving heavily into the
gallery by the upper end at which they would
pass out of it, if they ever passed out; for greater
dangers lay on the road behind them than before.
The snow soon began to choke the arch. An
hour more, and it lay so high as to block out
half of the returning daylight. But it froze hard
now, as it fell, and could be clambered through
or over. The violence of the mountain storm
was gradually yielding to a steady snowfall. The
wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly;
and when it paused, the snow fell in heavy
flakes.

They might have been two hours in their
frightful prison, when Obenreizer, now crunching
into the mound, now creeping over it with
his head bowed down and his body touching the
top of the arch, made his way out. Vendale
followed close upon him, but followed without
clear motive or calculation. For the lethargy
of Basle was creeping over him again, and
mastering his senses.

How far he had followed out of the gallery, or
with what obstacles he had since contended,
he knew not. He became roused to the
knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and
that they were struggling desperately in the
snow. He became roused to the remembrance
of what his assailant carried in a girdle. He felt
for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled again,
struck at him again, cast him off, and stood face
to face with him.

"I promised to guide you to your journey's
end," said Obenreizer, "and I have kept my
promise. The journey of your life ends here.
Nothing can prolong it. You are sleeping as
you stand."

"You are a villain. What have you done to
me?"

"You are a fool. I have drugged you. You
are doubly a fool, for I drugged you once before
upon the journey, to try you. You are trebly
a fool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a
few moments I shall take those proofs against
the thief and forger from your insensible body."

The entrapped man tried to throw off the
lethargy, but its fatal hold upon him was so
sure that, even while he heard those words, he
stupidly wondered which of them had been
wounded, and whose blood it was that he saw
sprinkled on the snow.

"What have I done to you," he asked,
heavily and thickly, "that you should be—so
base—a murderer?"

"Done to me? You would have destroyed
me, but that you have come to your journey's
end. Your cursed activity interposed between
me, and the time I had counted on in which I
might have replaced the money. Done to me?
You have come in my way—not once, not
twice, but again and again and again. Did I
try to shake you off in the beginning, or no?
You were not to be shaken off. Therefore you
die here."

Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to
speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod
staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried to
stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in
vain! He stumbled, and fell heavily forward
on the brink of the deep chasm.

Stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his
feet, a veil before his eyes, his sense of hearing
deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that,
supporting himself on his hands, he saw his
enemy standing calmly over him, and heard him
speak.

"You call me murderer," said Obenreizer, with
a grim laugh. "The name matters very little.
But at least I have set my life against yours,
for l am surrounded by dangers, and may never
make my way out of this place. The Tourmente
is rising again. The snow is on the whirl. I
must have the papers now. Every moment has
my life in it."

"Stop!" cried Vendale, in a terrible voice,
staggering up with a last flash of fire breaking
out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at
his breast, in both of his. "Stop! Stand away
from me! God bless my Marguerite! Happily
she will never know how I died. Stand off
from me, and let me look at your murderous