“Alas! alas!” resumed Ida, “dreadful apprehensions force themselves upon my mind! Randolf frequently suffered hints to escape him, which the more that I reflect on them, serve but to confirm my fears the more. The robbers have a private understanding with the false Hilarius.—The Monks, whom I discovered in Randolf’s train, are of the same order with that betrayer!—It’s true, Count Frederick has treated me cruelly and unjustly, and now little merits, that I should feel anxiety on his account. Yet, oh! that I were but near him for one half hour, that I might warn him of the dangers, which hang over him and his, and which I would willingly avert, though the price were the last drop of my blood and the last breath existence.”— The Sisters had full leisure in the wild solitude to which they were conveyed, to communicate to each other their mutual fears and melancholy forebodings. Ida’s insinuating manners soon rendered her a favourite with her grey-headed guards; and the persuasion of Constantia’s religious vocation made them bow with superstitious reverence at her approach, and hold it an honour to be suffered to kiss the hem of her sanctified garment. In consequence of these prepossessions in their favour, the Sisters had no other reason to complain of their treatment in confinement, than the confinement itself. The place, in which they now resided, was inaccessible to all, except the robbers, and the rays of the sun. It was a flat spot surrounded by a chain of snow-covered mountains; one narrow footpath hewn in the rock was the only entrance, whose windings were known to none except the ferocious inhabitants of this valley; and which the sudden descent of weights of snow and of ice-splinters[1] from the over-hanging rocks frequently rendered for some time impracticable even for them. The Sisters shuddered, as they gazed upon the gigantic masses of rocks of ice, which glittered coldly around them as far as the eye could reach; and they could not conceal their terrors at reflecting, that a single motion of those cloud-covered summits would be sufficient to convert the valley into their inevitable grave. The chief of their guards, however, upon hearing them make this remark assured them, that this never _would_ happen, because it never _had_ happened yet. Footnote 1: Avalanches.