"Never. I shall not see them any more. They
are there, I know; but I have not the eyes to see
them. I see quite other things."

"What do you see?"

"I, carino? I see a blue sky and a snow-mountain
--that is all when I look up into the heights.
But down there it is different."

He pointed to the valley below them. Arthur
knelt down and bent over the sheer edge of the
precipice. The great pine trees, dusky in the gathering
shades of evening, stood like sentinels along
the narrow banks confining the river. Presently
the sun, red as a glowing coal, dipped behind a
jagged mountain peak, and all the life and light
deserted the face of nature. Straightway there
came upon the valley something dark and threatening
--sullen, terrible, full of spectral weapons.
The perpendicular cliffs of the barren western
mountains seemed like the teeth of a monster
lurking to snatch a victim and drag him down into
the maw of the deep valley, black with its moaning
forests. The pine trees were rows of knife-blades
whispering: "Fall upon us!" and in the
gathering darkness the torrent roared and howled,
beating against its rocky prison walls with the
frenzy of an everlasting despair.