d by one who is lost," said
the hermit, "one who does not salute the cross of my hermitage."

"My father, go not thither!"

"I want my soul! My soul is mine--"

"Hold him! Hold my father!" cried Gerande.

But the old man had leaped across the threshold, and plunged into
the night, crying, "Mine, mine, my soul!"

Gerande, Aubert, and Scholastique hastened after him. They went
by difficult paths, across which Master Zacharius sped like a
tempest, urged by an irresistible force. The snow raged around
them, and mingled its white flakes with the froth of the swollen
torrents.

As they passed the chapel erected in memory of the massacre of
the Theban legion, they hurriedly crossed themselves. Master
Zacharius was not to be seen.

At last the village of Evionnaz appeared in the midst of this
sterile region. The hardest heart would have been moved to see
this hamlet, lost among these horrible solitudes. The old man
sped on, and plunged into the deepest gorge of the Dents-du-Midi,
which pierce the sky with their sharp peaks.

Soon a ruin, old and gloomy as the rocks at its base, rose before
him.

"It is there--there!" he cried, hastening his pace still more
frantically.

[Illustration: "It is there--there!"]

The chateau of Andernatt was a ruin even then. A thick, crumbling
tower rose above it, and seemed to menace with its downfall the
old gables which reared themselves below. The vast piles of
jagged stones were gloomy to look on. Several dark halls appeared
amid the debris, with caved-in ceilings, now become the abode of
vipers.

A low and narrow postern, opening upon a ditch choked with
rubbish, gave access to the chateau. Who had dwelt there none
knew. No doubt some margrave, half lord, half brigand, had
sojourned in it; to the margrave had succeeded bandits or
counterfeit coiners, who had been hanged on the scene of their
crime. The legend went that, on winter nights, Satan came to lead
his diabolical dances on the slope of the deep gorges in which
the shadow of these ruins was engulfed.

But Master Zacharius was not dismayed by their sinister aspect.
He reached the postern. No one forbade him to pass. A spacious
and gloomy court presented itself to his eyes; no one forbade him
to cross it. He passed along the kind of inclined plane which
conducted to one of the long corridors, whose arches seemed to
banish daylight from beneath their heavy springings. His advance
was unresisted. Gerande, Aubert, and S