gain breath for a longer ascent; for now the mountain snows were above
them on either side, and the Alps rose sublimely impassable in front.
The hawks careened beneath them; the chamois above dared not look down
for dizziness, and Hugenot said, at Ariola, that they were taking lunch
in a balloon. The manner of Mr. Plade now altered marvellously. It might
have been his breakfast that gave him spirit and speech; he sang a
merry, bad song, which the rocks echoed back, and all the goitred women
at the roadside stopped with their pack burdens to listen. He told a
thousand anecdotes. He knew all the story of the pass; how the Swiss,
filing through it, had scattered the Milanese; how Suwarrow and Massena
had made its sterility fertile with blood.

Hugenot's admiration amounted to envy. He had never known his associate
so brilliant, so pleasing; the exaltation was too great, indeed, to
arise from any ordinary cause; but Hugenot was not shrewd enough to
inquire into the affair. He wearied at length of the talk and of the
scene, and when at last they reached the region of perpetual ice, he
closed the cabriolet windows, and watched the filtering flakes, and
heard the snow crush under the wheels, and dropped into a deep sleep
which the other seemed to share.

The clouds around them made the mountains dusky, and the interior of the
carriage was quite gloomy. At length the large gentleman turned his
head, so that his ear could catch every breath, and he regarded the dim
outlines of the lesser with motionless interest. Then he took a straw
from the litter at his feet, and, bending forward, touched his comrade's
throat. The other snored measuredly for a while, but the titillation
startled him at length, and he beat the air in his slumber. When the
irritation ceased he breathed tranquilly again, and then the first-named
placed his hand softly into the sleeper's pocket. He drew forth the
wallet with steady fingers, and as coolly emptied it of its contents.
These he concealed in the leg of his boot, but replaced the book where
he had found it. For a little space he remained at rest, leaning against
the back of the carriage, with his head bent upon his breast and his
hands clenched like one at bay and in doubt.

The slow advance of the teams and the frequent changes of
direction--sometimes so abrupt as almost to reverse the
cabriolet--advised him that they were climbing the mountain by zigzags
or terraces. He knew that they were in the _