"Precisely, Monsieur. She abused me for my curiosity, and, oh, Monsieur, the words she used! The profanities! And at the same time her face as mild as a pigeon's! She taunted me with being a Protestant, as if it were a black crime which bred others. Her name, if you would believe it, is Innocentina Palumbo--_Innocentina!_ But her tongue! Monsieur, I listened as if I had been turned to stone. And it was at this time that the young gentleman, of whom she had told me, came out of the inn. He wished to walk, but Innocentina said that he was already too tired, and before he knew what was happening, she had him in the saddle on his _âne_. So they went off, and where they will pass the night, their saints alone know, for it is all but certain that they will never get such animals as those even as far as the Cantine de Proz." "They were going in our direction, then?" I said. "We shall pass them on the way presently." "I do not doubt it, Monsieur, though they had half an hour's start." "Were the boy and the donkey-woman alone? No tutor with them?" "Tutor, Monsieur? The poor young gentleman has a tutor and a duenna in Innocentina. I wish him joy of her." "I wish her joy of him," said I, remembering my wrongs. But soon I forgot them and all other troubles past and present, in surrendering my spirit to the glory of the scene. Joseph had his triumph, for the surprise he had kept up his sleeve was out at last. St. Bernard had me at his feet, and held me there. The wild and gloomy splendour of the Pass struck at my heart, and fired my imagination. Even the Simplon had nothing like this to give. The Simplon at its finest sang a pæan to civilisation; it glorified the science of engineering, and told you that it was a triumph of modernity. But this strange, unkempt Pass, with its inadequate road,--now overhanging a sheer precipice, now dipping down steeply towards the wild bed of its sombre river,--this Great St. Bernard, seemed a secret way back into other centuries, savage and remote. I felt shame that I had patronised it earlier, with condescending admiration of some prettinesses. No wonder that Joseph had smiled and held his peace, knowing what was to come. There was the old road, the Roman road, along which Napoleon had led his staggering thousands. There were his forts, scarcely yet crumbled into ruin. I saw the army, a straggling procession of haggard ghosts, following always, and falling as they followed, enacting again for me the passing scene of death and anguish. I was one of the men. I struggled on, because Napoleon needed all his soldiers. Then weakness crushed me, like a weight of iron. A mist before my eyes shut out the opposite precipice with its sparse pines, and flashing waterfalls, the mountain heights beyond, and the merciless blue sky. This was death. Who cared? The echo of thirty thousand feet was in my ears as they passed on, leaving me to die by the roadside, as I had left others before.