He rode a little behind me, with his gun across his saddlebow, and a pistol near his hand; and at the slightest pause on my part, or if I turned to look at him, he muttered his constant 'Forward, Monsieur!' in a tone which warned me that his finger was on the trigger.

At such a distance he could not miss; and I saw nothing for it but to go on meekly before him to the Roca Blanca--and my fate.
What was to be done?
The road presently reached the end of the valley and entered a narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks and boulders, over which the torrent plunged and eddied with a deafening roar.

In front the white gleam of waterfalls broke the sombre ranks of climbing trunks.

The snow line lay less than half a mile away on either hand; and crowning all--at the end of the pass, as it seemed to the eye--rose the pure white pillar of the Pic du Midi shooting up six thousand feet into the blue of heaven.

Such a scene so suddenly disclosed, was enough to drive the sense of danger from my mind; and for a moment I reined in my horse.