“Are we again lost?” asked the Baron de Willading, pressing Adelheid closer to his beating heart, nearly ready to submit to their common fate in despair.  “Has God at length forsaken us?—­my daughter—­my beloved child!”

This touching appeal was answered by a howl from Uberto, who leaped madly away and disappeared.  Nettuno followed, barking wildly and with a deep throat.  Pierre did not hesitate about following, and Sigismund, believing that the movement of the guide was to arrest the flight of the dogs, was quickly on his heels.  Maso moved with greater deliberation.

“Nettuno is not apt to raise that bark with nothing but hail, and snow, and wind in his nostrils,” said the calculating Italian.  “We are either near another party of travellers, for such are on the mountains as I know”

“God forbid!  Art sure of this?” demanded the Signor Grimaldi, observing that the other had suddenly checked himself.

“Sure that others were, Signore,” returned the mariner deliberately, as if he measured well the meaning of each word.  “Ah, here comes the trusty beast, and Pierre, and the Captain, with their tidings, be they good or be they evil.”

The two just named rejoined their friends a Maso ceased speaking.  They hurriedly informed the shivering travellers that the much desired Refuge was near, and that nothing but the darkness and the driving snow prevented it from being seen.

“It was a blessed thought, and one that came from St. Augustine himself, which led the holy monks to raise this shelter!” exclaimed the delighted Pierre, no longer considering it necessary to conceal the extent of the danger they had run.  “I would not answer even for my own power to reach the hospice in a time like this.  You are of mother church, Signore, being of Italy?”

“I am one of her unworthy children,” returned the Genoese.

“This unmerited favor must have come from the prayers of St. Augustine, and a vow I made to send a fair offering to our Lady of Einsiedeln; for never before have I known a dog of St. Bernard lead the traveller to the Refuge!  Their business is to find the frozen, and to guide the traveller along the paths to the hospice.  Even Uberto had his doubts, as you saw, but the vow prevailed; or, I know not—­it might, indeed, have been the prayer.”

The Signor Grimaldi was too eager to get Adelheid under cover, and, in good sooth, to be there himself, to waste the time in discussing the knotty point of which of two means that were equally orthodox, had been the most efficacious in bringing about their rescue.  In common with the others, he followed the pious and confiding Pierre in silence, making the best of his way after the credit lous guide.  The latter had not yet seen the Refuge himself, for so these places are well termed on the Alpine passes, but the information of the ground had satisfied him of its proximity.  Once reassured as to his precise position, all the surrounding localities presented