After various roamings, by night and by day, he came upon a broad road, clearly one of the great alpine passes. Which of them he could not tell. He would have given the world to learn; for he knew nothing of his whereabouts, and thought himself still in Tyrol, or, at the best, in Bormio. His attempts to gain information from the peasants had always failed, and, in one or two instances, had seemed to threaten serious consequences. Though brave enough in the front of an open danger, the secret toils which had been about him so long had taught him to shrink from the face of man. Moreover, he could not speak the prevalent language of the district, and his Italian, which might sometimes have served him, was none of the best. A little local knowledge could have saved him a world of suffering; but, in the lack of it, he pushed blindly on, resolved to die on the mountains rather than risk another prison. The sky for some days had been overclouded. He had lost the points of the compass; and when he saw the great highway stretching before him, dim and lonely in the gray of the morning, he thought, or hoped, that it would lead him into the heart of Switzerland. It was the pass of the Splugen, where it leaves the Rheinwald. Turning his back on safety, he began to plod on towards the lion's jaws. Seeing a small cottage, in a recess of the forest, he reconnoitred it, with the laudable view of robbing a henroost. While thus employed, he saw two men leave the house, and betake themselves to their work in some remote part of the mountain. After a long reconnaissance, he could see no one about the place but a young woman, about six feet high, who, fork in hand, was busying herself in a field with labors much less elegant than useful. Morton watched her for a time, then, taking heart of grace, walked towards her from his lurking-place, holding between his fingers, as a talisman, a piece of silver, part of the scanty trust which Max had left him. When he beheld her lusty proportions, her white teeth, grinning between perplexity at his appearance and pleasure at sight of the coin, and her broad cheeks, ruddy with health, good-nature, and stupidity, his apprehensions vanished. She seemed not at all afraid of him. In truth, she and her pitchfork might between them have put two common men to flight. He spoke to her in bad Italian, and asked for food, proffering the money in exchange. She answered in a _patois_ which was Greek to him, mixed with a few words of Italian, worse than his own. She seemed, however, to catch his meaning very clearly; for, running to the house, she presently emerged with a loaf of barley bread and a formidable piece of bacon. These she gave him, and, taking the silver, tied it up with much care in a corner of her apron.