"With Maso, I could wish we were safely landed," answered the good canon;
"the intense heat that a day like this creates in our valleys and on the
lakes so weakens the sub-strata, or foundations of air, that the cold
masses which collect around the glaciers sometimes descend like avalanches
from their heights, to fill the vacuum. The shock is fearful, even to
those who meet it in the glens and among the rocks, but the plunge of such
a column of air upon one of the lakes is certain to be terrible."

"And thou thinkest there is danger of one of these phenomena at present?"

"I know not; but I would we were housed! That unnatural light above, and
this deep tranquillity below, which surpasses an ordinary cairn have
already driven me to my aves."

"The reverend Augustine speaks like a book man, and one who has passed his
time, up in his mountain-convent, in study and reflection," rejoined Maso;
"whereas the reasons I have to offer savor more of the seaman's practice.
A calm like this, will be followed, sooner or later, by a commotion in the
atmosphere. I like not the absence of the breeze from the land, on which
Baptiste counted so surely, and, taking that symptom with the signs of
yonder hot sky, I look soon to see this extraordinary quiet displaced by
some violent struggle among the winds. Nettuno, too, my faithful dog, has
given notice, by the manner in which he snuffs the air, that we are not to
pass the night in this motionless condition."

"I had hoped ere this to be quietly in our haven. What means yonder bright
light? Is it a star in the heavens, or does it merely lie against the side
of the huge mountain?"