Of what Larke suffered during that period I had no suspicion, but from subsequent hints I gather that his distress, though based upon far other grounds, was no whit inferior to my own. His behaviour, indeed, when I came to consider it, revealed to me new and amiable aspects of his character; for while he firmly disbelieved in my ability to captain an expedition, he never once pestered me for an explanation. I had entrusted the purse to his care, and at each town he made the arrangements for our stay, looked after the welfare of our horses, and in short, took modestly upon himself the troublesome conduct of our travels. Knowing nothing of my purpose but its danger, and distrustful of its achievement, he yet rode patiently forward, humming ever a French song, of which the refrain ran, I remember: Que toutes joies et toutes honneurs Viennent d'armes et d'amours. For he possessed that delicate gift of sympathy which keeps the friend silent when the acquaintance multiplies his questions. Thus we journeyed for over a month. It was, I fancy, on the 12th November that we reached the town of Innspruck, the weather very shrewd and bitter, for snow had fallen in great quantities, and a cutting wind blew from the hills. That night I told my companion of our destination, but disclosed no more of the business than that I had a private message for Count Lukstein's ear, which must needs be delivered secretly if we were to save our lives. We stayed here for two days that we might rest our horses, and early on the 14th set off for Glurns, which lay some eighty miles away in a broad valley they called the Vintschgau. The snow, however, was massed very deep, and though the road was sound, for it was the highway into Italy, we did not come up with the village until two o'clock on the third afternoon. Beyond Glurns the road traversed the valley in a diagonal line through a dreary avenue of stunted limes, which in their naked leaflessness looked in the distance like a palisade. Into this avenue we passed, and were well-nigh across the dale and under its northern barrier of mountains, when Larke suddenly reined up. "'Childe Roland to the dark tower came,'" he sang out. "Heaven send there be no one to complete the quotation!" I followed the direction of his gaze. Right ahead of us the Castle, the rock whereon it was pinnacled, and the village, huddled on a little plateau at its base, stood out from the hillside like a black stain upon the snow. A carriage-way, diverging from our road a hundred yards farther on, ran up towards it in long zigzags, and to this point we advanced. "Look!" suddenly cried Larke. "We are not the first to visit the worthy Count to-day." From both directions carriages or sledges had turned into this track, so that the snow at its entrance was trampled by the hoofs of horses, and cut by intersecting curves. "'Tis not certain," I said, "that the marks were made to-day."