on their left, the travellers could distinguish nothing through the
blinding rain. Shortly the wind began to blow, whistling in the stiff
pines as it whistles among the taut cordage of a ship in a gale. At
intervals it tore along the salient zigzags and threatened to sweep the
mules off their legs. The flashes of lightning now followed one another
in rapid succession, and the thunder crashed incessantly through the
gorges. It appeared as if the great cones and cromlechs were tumbling
pell-mell from every direction into the valley.

Though the situation of the three persons on the mountain side was
disagreeable to the last extent, they were exposed to only one especial
danger--that from a land-slide or a detached boulder. At every ten steps
the guide glanced up the dripping steep, and listened. Even the mules
were not without a prescience of this peril. The sharpest lightning did
not make them wince, but at the faintest sound of a splinter of rock or
a pebble rustling down the slope, their ears instantly went forward at
an acute angle. The footing soon became difficult on account of the
gullies formed by the rain. In spite of his anxiety concerning Ruth,
Lynde could not help admiring the skill with which the sagacious animals
felt their way. Each fore hoof as it touched the earth seemed endowed
with the sense of fingers.

Lynde had dismounted after the rain set in and was walking beside the
girl's mule. Once, as an unusually heavy clap of thunder burst over
their heads, she had impulsively stretched out her hand to him; he had
taken it, and still held it, covered by a fold of the waterproof,
steadying her so. He was wet to the skin, but Ruth's double wraps had
preserved her thus far from anything beyond the dampness.

"Are you cold?" he asked. Her hand was like ice.