round eastward by Delemont. But for my part, I was on a straight path
to Rome, and as that line lay just along the top of the river bend I
was bound to take it.

Now outside St Ursanne, if one would go along the top of the river
bend and so up to the other side of the gorge, is a kind of subsidiary
ravine--awful, deep, and narrow--and this was crossed, I could see, by
a very high railway bridge.

Not suspecting any evil, and desiring to avoid the long descent into
the ravine, the looking for a bridge or ford, and the steep climb up
the other side, I made in my folly for the station which stood just
where the railway left solid ground to go over this high, high bridge.
I asked leave of the stationmaster to cross it, who said it was
strictly forbidden, but that he was not a policeman, and that I might
do it at my own risk. Thanking him, therefore, and considering how
charming was the loose habit of small uncentralized societies, I went
merrily on to the bridge, meaning to walk across it by stepping from
sleeper to sleeper. But it was not to be so simple. The powers of the
air, that hate to have their kingdom disturbed, watched me as I began.

I had not been engaged upon it a dozen yards when I was seized with
terror.

I have much to say further on in this book concerning terror: the
panic that haunts high places and the spell of many angry men. This
horrible affection of the mind is the delight of our modern
scribblers; it is half the plot of their insane 'short stories', and
is at the root of their worship of what they call 'strength', a
cowardly craving for protection, or the much more despicable