"It is," he replied, "else would the ruts have frozen." The thought that the Count had company doubled my disquiet. For there was the less chance of finding him alone, and I was anxious to have done with the matter. The first angle made by the zigzags was thickly covered with a boskage of pines. Into this we led our horses, and fastening them in the heart of it where the trees were most dense, we crept towards the west corner. At this point the track bent back upon itself and mounted eastwards to the border of the village, turned again, threading the houses at the bottom of the cliff, struck up thence at a right angle in a clear, open stretch beneath the west face of the rock, and finally curved round at the back to the gates. For the entrance to the Castle fronted the hillside and not the valley. I took my Horace from my pocket, and in an instant the diagram became intelligible to me. The long curving line represented the road, and the way of ascent, marked by the cross, was to be found on the western wall of rock, and above the open stretch of road. Of this we now commanded an unimpeded view, for the corner of the road at which we stood was situate to the west of the Castle. "I see it!" I exclaimed, and I handed the book to Larke. "So this is the secret of the poet's fascination," he answered. "But I see no path. The cliff is as smooth as an egg-shell, save for that one projecting rib." "That is the path," I replied. A shoulder of rock with a ribbon of snow upon its ridge jutted out from the summit of the cliff, and descended in an unbroken line to the road. "'Tis impossible to ascend that," said he. "We should break our necks for a surety or ever we were half-way up." "It shows steeper than it is," I answered. "We are not well-placed for judging of its incline; for that we should see it in profile. But where snow lies, there a man may climb." Jack raised no further objection; but ever and again I noticed him gazing at me with a puzzled expression upon his face. We crouched down in the undergrowth until such time as the night should fall, blowing on our fingers and pressing close against each other for warmth's sake. But 'twas of little use; my body tingled with cold, and I began to think my muscles would be frozen stiff, before the darkness gave us leave to move. The valley, moreover, looked singularly mournful and desolate in its shroud of white. As far as the eye could travel not a living thing could be seen, nor could the ear detect a sound. The region brooded in a sinister silence. I verily believe that I should have loosed my horse and fled but for the presence of my companion.