miniature diligencia on the toy road far below swayed from the bank
of the highway to the verge--the four mules stretched out at a
gallop, as in a picture. The shouts dimly heard at the monastery
had the effect they were intended to create, for the monk could see
the carters and muleteers draw aside to let the living avalanche go
past.

There were but two men on the box-seat of the diligencia--the driver
and a passenger seated by his side. The monk recollected that this
passenger had passed two days at Montserrat, inscribing himself in
the visitors' book as Matthew S. Whittaker.

"I am ready to take the reins when your arms are cramped," this
passenger was saying at that precise moment, "but I do not know the
road, and I cannot drive so well as you."

He finished with a curt laugh, and, holding on with both hands, he
turned and looked at his companion. He was not afraid, and death
assuredly stared him in the face at that moment.

"Thanks for that, at all events," returned the driver, handling his
reins with a steady skill. Then he fell to cursing the mules. As
he rounded each corner of the winding road, he gave a derisive shout
of triumph; as he safely passed a cart, he gave voice to a yell of
defiance. He went to his death--if death awaited him--with a fine
spirit, with a light in his eyes and the blood in his tanned cheeks.

The man at his side could perhaps have saved himself by a leap which
might, with good fortune, have resulted in nothing more serious than
a broken limb. As he had been invited by the driver to take this