Tragic silence enveloped the wayfarers, broken at intervals by the scream of the vultures. Strange forms showed here and there through the fog, the cry of the carrion feeding birds seemed the wild voice of these mysterious shapes, terrified and enraged by the intrusion of man. To Anania it seemed as if he were walking through the clouds. Sometimes his head swam, and to vanquish the vertigo he fixed his eyes on the path under the horses' feet, staring at the wet and shining slabs of schist, and at the little bushes of violet heather, the sharp scent of which made the fog fragrant. About nine the fog lifted a little, fortunately, as the travellers were just then passing with difficulty along a very narrow piece of path, on the huge shoulder of Monte Spada. Anania gave a cry of admiration, torn from him by the beauty and the magnificence of the panorama. All the nearer mountains were covered with a mantle of violet flowers; beyond, the vision of the deep valleys, of the high summits to which he was drawing near, of the torn veils of luminous mist, of the play of shadow and sun, of the blue heaven painted with strange and slowly contracting clouds, all seemed the dream of a painter's madness, a picture of unimagined beauty. "How great is nature! how strong! how beautiful!" thought Anania, his heart softened, "all things are pure on her immense bosom. Ah! if we three, Margherita, and I, and she, were here and, would it be possible for any impure things to divide us?" A breath of hope revived his spirit. If Margherita loved him, as in these last few days she had shown that she loved him--then surely---- With this wild hope in his heart, he dreamed away a long time, till he had reached the bottom of the slope of Monte Spada, and had again begun to ascend to the topmost peak of the Gennargentu. A torrent ran at the bottom, among enormous rocks and alder trees shaken by a sudden gust of wind. The sound of the alders in the silence of that place of mystery, brought a strange fancy to Anania; it seemed as if the winds had been wakened by this hope which animated him, and that all things were moved by it, the lonely trees trembling like wild men surprised in their gloomy solitude by a sudden joy. Then in a quick revulsion of feeling, he remembered a fancy of a few days before in the wind-shaken forest of Orthobene. Then also the trees had seemed to him men, but miserable men, tom by sorrow. Even when the wind was still, they trembled, like human creatures experienced in suffering, who even in their moments of ease must think of sorrow, inevitable and near. His depression returned. An absurd notion flashed across his thought. Kill the guide and become a bandit! He smiled at himself.