In a few minutes she found herself in the presence of a more serious obstacle. Before her rolled a torrent, which carried down in its rapid waters huge blocks of stone, as any other stream would carry down logs. This new barrier it was not easy either to overcome or avoid. The night was dark, and the moon faint and pale, and half hidden in masses of cloud. It seemed rather like a dying watch-fire than a luminary of the first magnitude. The water of the torrent gleaming in this half light rushed by with formidable violence, and Mitaine felt her brain swim whenever she looked at it. She hurried up and down the bank, seeking in vain for a means of crossing. The lightning, as if to confuse her, redoubled its intensity, and showed her the castle situated at a short distance on the further shore. At length, however, she discovered a tree which lay across the gulf. Every wave as it passed had washed away a portion of the bank; the tree, half uprooted, had held its own well for a time, until at last, weary of the struggle, it had suffered itself to sink to the ground. Mitaine contemplated this means of crossing not without apprehension. Tremblingly she placed her foot upon the trunk; it shook and rocked. She hesitated, and as her hesitation increased, so the tree became more shaky and uncertain. “What!” said she, impatiently; “am I so short a distance from my object, and must I draw back because the passage is not quite safe? No! it is fear that makes me awkward; every day I accomplish things far more difficult than this.” She set her foot resolutely on the trunk, and found, to her surprise, that it grew firmer as she went on. [Illustration: 217] “Why, I am on a wooden bridge,” said she, when she got half-way over. “Nay, indeed, it’s a fine stone bridge,” she cried, as she reached the farther shore. Of a truth, my children, fear doubles the importance of most obstacles, for it deprives us of half die faculties which should assist us to overcome them. Take away the ape’s intrepidity and give it to man, and man will become as agile as the ape. Mitaine saw before her but one road, and set out resolutely along it’ although it wras so narrow that she brushed the rock on either side with her shoulders. It was, in fact, less a path than a cleft in the mountain side. She pushed forward on tip-toe, wondering a little what she should find at the other end of this burrow. Suddenly her head encountered an obstacle, and she discovered that the passage had become so low, that she must stoop to continue her path. “Do they want to bury me alive?” The thought made her hair bristle; and not without reason, I can assure you, for she was in utter darkness, with hardly a breath of air, and every instant she felt the four walls closing in. “Do your best, Croquemitaine; it shall never be said that I turned back, when I had got so close to you.”