With every yard the walls of the gorge were drawing further apart, slowly revealing themselves in all their glory. Forests and waterfalls, precipices and greenswards, grey lichened crags and sun-bathed terraces, up, above all, an exquisite vesture of snow, flawless and dazzling--these stood for beauty. All the wonder of height, the towering proportions of the place, the bewildering pitch of the sky--these stood for grandeur. An infinite serenity, an imperturbable peace, a silence which the faint gush of springs served to enrich--these stood for majesty. Nature has throne-rooms about the world, and this was one of them. I started the engine again--for we had instinctively stopped--and Pong thrust on. Up, up, up we toiled, through the hanging village of Valcarlos, past a long string of jingling mules, under stupendous porches of the living rock, round hair-pin bends, by woods and coppices, over grey bridges--wet and shining and all stuck with ferns--now looking forward to the snow-bound ridge, now facing back to find the frontier village shrunk to a white huddle of dots, the torrent to a winking thread of silver, and our late road to a slender straggling ribbon, absurdly foreign, ridiculously remote. On we stormed, higher and higher, past boulders and poor trees wrung with the wind, and presently up and into and over the snow, while slowly, foot by foot, depth dragged height down to nothing. For the third time it occurred to me that the engine was unwarrantably hot, and, after a moment's consideration, I took out the clutch and brought the car to a standstill. "What is it?" said Daphne. "She's hot," said I. "Hotter than she should be. At least, I think so. Of course it's a deuce of a pull." And, with that, I opened the door. "You're not going to get out in this snow?" "Only a second, dear." Upon observing that the fan-belt was broken, it was natural that I should regret very much that I had not looked for the trouble when first I suspected its presence. Had I done so, I should have spared the engine, I should have been able to correct the disorder without burning myself to hell, and I should not have been standing, while I worked, in four inches of snow. Gloomily I made my report. "I'm sorry," I concluded, "but I shall have to have Berry. I've got a new strap in the boot, but I can't shift the luggage alone." Berry closed his eyes and sank his chin upon his breast. "Go on, old chap," said Daphne. "I'm very sorry for you, but----" "I--I don't feel well," said Berry. "Besides, I haven't got my gum-boots." "Will you get out?" said his wife. At last, between us, we got him as far as the running board. "Come on," I said impatiently.