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Sometimes Tom noted that his guide would look back, and more than once he fancied that he detected him signalling to those below. This aroused in his mind a doubt of the fellow's fidelity; but there was nothing to be done now. They were in the midst of trackless snow plains, ice slopes, and precipices.
But the llamas seemed to be more sure-footed than mountain goats, and despite their loads they scrambled up and down apparently inaccessible places, or plodded sedately along the narrowest and most dizzy ledges without accident, while the Peruvians seemed to be absolutely at home among the peaks and precipices.
But all this glory has passed away, and now, the rooks and sea-birds have the famous old castle all to themselves wheel fearlessly about the lofty black precipices, and scream back the shrillest shriek of the storm-winds. Now, no bard, however poor, ever visits that once hospitable hall, to "sing for his supper," and even the gloomy Banshee has retired from her turret in disgust.
This cone continued to glow with intense heat, throwing out occasional flashes. The base of this cone eventually acquired a circumference of about a mile. But the fountain itself formed a river of glowing lava, which rushed and bounded with the speed of a torrent down the sides of the mountain, filling up ravines and dashing over precipices, until it reached the forests at the foot of the volcano.
They went through vast forests, among the very tops of the tall pines; they climbed wide, bare slopes where the winds had almost stripped the snow from the gaunt rocks; they descended into sheltered valleys where the deer went scurrying at their approach; they crossed deep gulches packed half-full of blown and drifted snow; they passed close to the edges of precipices where a false step would have sent them whirling down into white abysses spiked with pines.
The cañon bottom was fairly smooth. For more than an hour the fugitives raced up the great cleft between the towering precipices and past narrow side cañons. At last they came to a break in the sheer walls. The cliff on the right leaned back in a series of terraces that formed a broken giant stairway to the top of the mesa. Carmena led the pony up a sloping shelf ledge.
In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene. We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the labourers as we glided down the stream.
But he trudged on doggedly. Mountains obstructed his path and he climbed the mountains. Precipices opened under his feet and he descended into the precipices; he forded streams, he crossed horrible regions black with the fumes of sulphur. He trudged across burning lava on which his feet left their imprint; he had the appearance of a desperately dogged traveller.
"I don't feel as if I could ever be merry again with you, Hugh," she said. "And here have I," he said, addressing the verandah ceiling, "passed through dangers enough to make me loved, Othello-wise, for themselves alone. Dangers of culverts, dangers of sharp turnings, dangers of blue metal, of precipices, of wandering cows, of naphtha explosions.
There were pinnacles and small precipices. There were small, fleshy-leaved bushes growing out of such tiny collections of soil as had formed in cracks and crevices in the rock. Sergeant Madden noted that one such bush was wilted. He stopped. He bent over and carefully felt of the stones about it. A small rock came out. The bush had been out of the ground before. It had carefully been replaced.
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