Seraphitus clasped the young girl in his arms.

Minna accepted the caress as an answer to her words, continuing to gaze at him.

As he raised his head, and threw back with impatient gesture the golden masses of his hair to free his brow, he saw an expression of joy in the eyes of his companion.
"Yes, Minna," he said in a voice whose paternal accents were charming from the lips of a being who was still adolescent, "Keep your eyes on me; do not look below you." "Why not ?" she asked.
"You wish to know why?
then look!" Minna glanced quickly at her feet and cried out suddenly like a child who sees a tiger.

The awful sensation of abysses seized her; one glance sufficed to communicate its contagion.

The fiord, eager for food, bewildered her with its loud voice ringing in her ears, interposing between herself and life as though to devour her more surely.