Fortune smiled on his strategy. Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz--full of
wine, and discharging hurrahs along the road--met him on the bridge over
the roaring Oglio, just out of Edolo, and gave him news of the fugitives.
'Both of them were at the big hotel in Bormio,' said Jacob; 'and I set up
a report that the Stelvio was watched; and so it is.' He added that he
thought they were going to separate; he had heard something to that
effect; he believed that the young lady was bent upon crossing one of the
passes to Meran. Last night it had devolved on him to kiss away the
tears of the young lady's maid, a Valtelline peasant-girl, who deplored
the idea of an expedition over the mountains, and had, with the usual
cat-like tendencies of these Italian minxes, torn his cheek in return for
his assiduities. Jacob displayed the pretty scratch obtained in the Herr
Captain's service, and got his money for having sighted Vittoria and seen
double. Weisspriess decided in his mind that Angelo had now separated
from her (or rather, she from him) for safety. He thought it very
probable that she would likewise fly to Switzerland. Yet, knowing that
there was the attraction of many friends for her at Meran, he conceived
that he should act more prudently by throwing himself on that line, and
he sped Jacob Baumwalder along the Valtelline by Val Viola, up to Ponte
in the Engadine, with orders to seize her if he could see her, and have
her conveyed to Cles, in Tyrol. Vittoria being only by the gentlest
interpretation of her conduct not under interdict, an unscrupulous
Imperial officer might in those military times venture to employ the
gendarmerie for his own purposes, if he could but give a plausible colour
of devotion to the Imperial interests.

The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, taking a guide from
the skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted the Val Camonica, climbed the
Tonale, and reached Vermiglio in the branch valley of that name,
scientifically observing the features of the country as he went. At