head, its hairs
erect and crackling with electric sparks. They were in the very heart of
the storm, the forge itself of Vulcan. Bravida was the first to fly, at
full speed, the rest of the delegation flew behind him, when a cry from
the president, who thought of everything, stopped them:

"Thunder!.. beware of the thunder!.."

At any rate, outside of the very real danger of which he warned them,
there was no possibility of running on those steep and gullied slopes,
now transformed into torrents, into cascades, by the pouring rain. The
return was awful, by slow steps under that crazy cliff, amid the sharp,
short flashes of lightning followed by explosions, slipping, falling,
and forced at times to halt. Pascalon crossed himself and invoked
aloud, as at Tarascon: "Sainte Marthe and Sainte Helene, Sainte
Marie-Madeleine," while Excourbanies swore: "_Coquin de sort!_" and
Bravida, the rearguard, looked back in trepidation:

"What the devil is that behind us?.. It is galloping... it is
whistling... there, it has stopped..."

The idea of a furious chamois flinging itself upon its hunters was in
the mind of the old warrior. In a low voice, in order not to alarm the
others, he communicated his fears to Tartarin, who bravely took his
place as the rearguard and marched along, soaked to the skin, his head
high, with that mute determination which is given by the imminence of
danger. But when he reached the inn and saw his dear Alpinists under
shelter, drying their wet things, which smoked around a huge porcelain
stove in a first floor chamber, to which rose an odour of grog already
ordered, the president shivered and said, looking very pale: "I believe
I have taken cold."

"Taken cold!" No question now of starting again; the delegation asked
only for rest Quick, a bed was warmed, they hurried the hot wine
grog, and after his second glass the president felt throughout his
comfort-loving body a warmth, a tingling that augured well. Two pillows
at his back, a "_plumeau_" on his feet, his muffler round his head, he
experienced a delightful sense of well-being in listening to the roaring
of the storm, inhaling that good pine odour of the rustic little room
with its wooden walls and leaden panes, and in looking at his dear
Alpinists, gathered, glass in hand, around his bed in the anomalous
character given to their Gallic, Roman or Saracenic types by the
counterpanes, curtains, and carpets in which they were bundled while
their own