chilling in my veins.

There was a beauty in the white, sunlit landscape spread before me that
compelled my glance. To some it might compare but ill with the luxuriant
splendour that is of the vernal season; but to me there was a wondrously
impressive charm about that solemn, silent, virginal expanse of snow,
expressionless as the Sphinx, and imposing and majestic by virtue of that
very lack of expression. From Fabriano, at our feet, was spread to the
east, the broad plain that lies twixt the Esino and the Masone, as far as
Mount Comero, which, in the distance, lifted its round shoulder from the
haze of sea. To the west the country lay under the same winding-sheet of
snow as far as eye might range, to the towers of distant Perugia, to the
Lake Trasimeno--a silver sheen that broke the white monotony--to Etruscan
Cortona, perched like an eyrie on its mountain top, and to the line of
Tuscan hills, like heavy, low-lying clouds upon the blue horizon.

Lost was I in the contemplation of that scene when a cry, succeeded by a
volley of horrid blasphemy, drew my attention of a sudden to my
companions. They stood grouped together, and their eyes were on the road
by which we had scaled those heights. Their first expression of loud
astonishment had been succeeded by an utter silence. I stepped forward to
command a better view of what they contemplated, and in the plain below,
midway between Narni and the slopes, a mile or so behind us, I caught a
glitter as of a hundred mirrors in the sunshine. A company of some dozen
men-at-arms it was, riding briskly along the tracks we had left behind us
in the snow. Could these be the pursuers?

Even as I formed the question in my mind, the lady's silvery voice, behind
me, put it into words. She had drawn aside the curtains of her litter and
she was leaning out, her eyes upon those dancing points of brilliance.