ade at once for the main
range, knowing very well that, once we were over it, it would be
downhill all the way, and seeing upon our maps that there were houses
and living men high in the further Andorran valley, which was not
deserted like this vale of the Aston, but inhabited: full, that is, of
Catalans, who would soon make us forget the inhuman loneliness of the
heights, for by this time we were both convinced, though still neither
of us said it to the other, that there was an evil brooding over all
this place.

It was noon when, after many hours of broken marching and stumbling,
which betrayed our weakness, we stood at last beside the tarn in which
the last cliffs of the ridge are reflected, and here was a steep slope
up which a man could scramble. We drank at the foot of it the last of
our wine and ate the last of our bread, promising ourselves refreshment,
light, and peace immediately upon the further side, and thus lightened
of our provisions, and with more heart in us, we assaulted the final
hill; but just at the summit, where there should have greeted us a great
view over Spain, there lowered upon us the angry folds of a black cloud,
and the first of the accidents that were set in order by some enemy to
ruin us fell upon my companion and me.

For a storm broke, and that with such violence that we thought it would
have shattered the bare hills, for an infernal thunder crashed from one
precipice to another, and there flashed, now close to us, now vividly
but far off, in the thickness of the cloud, great useless and blinding
glares of lightning, and hailstones of great size fell about us also,
leaping from the bare rocks like marbles. And when the rain fell it was
just as though it had been from a hose, forced at one by a pressure
instead of falling, and we two on that height were the sole objects of
so much fury, until at last my companion cried out from the rock beneath
which he was cowering, "This is intolerable!" And I answered him, from
the rock which barely covered me, "It is not to be borne!" So in the
midst of the storm we groped our way down into the valley beneath, and
got below the cloud; and when we were there we thought we had saved the
day, for surely we were upon the southern side of the hills, and in a
very little while we should see the first roofs of the Andorrans.

For two doubtful hours we trudged down that higher valley, but there
were no men, nor any trace of men except this, that here and t