“What thinkest thou of this, father; a long residence in the Alps must have given thee some insight into their storms?”

The Augustine had been grave and thoughtful from the moment that he ceased to converse with Balthazar.  He, too, had been struck with the omens, and, long used to study the changes of the weather, in a region where the elements sometimes work their will on a scale commensurate with the grandeur of the mountains, his thoughts had been anxiously recurring to the comforts and security of some of those hospitable roofs in the city to which they were bound, and which were always ready to receive the clavier of St. Bernard, in return for the services and self-denial of his brotherhood.

“With Maso, I could wish we were safely landed,” answered the good canon; “the intense heat that a day like this creates in our valleys and on the lakes so weakens the sub-strata, or foundations of air, that the cold masses which collect around the glaciers sometimes descend like avalanches from their heights, to fill the vacuum.  The shock is fearful, even to those who meet it in the glens and among the rocks, but the plunge of such a column of air upon one of the lakes is certain to be terrible.”

“And thou thinkest there is danger of one of these phenomena at present?”

“I know not; but I would we were housed!  That unnatural light above, and this deep tranquillity below, which surpasses an ordinary cairn have already driven me to my aves.”

“The reverend Augustine speaks like a book man, and one who has passed his time, up in his mountain-convent, in study and reflection,” rejoined Maso; “whereas the reasons I have to offer savor more of the seaman’s practice.  A calm like this, will be followed, sooner or later, by a commotion in the atmosphere.  I like not the absence of the breeze from the land, on which Baptiste counted so surely, and, taking that symptom with the signs of yonder hot sky, I look soon to see this extraordinary quiet displaced by some violent struggle among the winds.  Nettuno, too, my faithful dog, has given notice, by the manner in which he snuffs the air, that we are not to pass the night in this motionless condition.”

“I had hoped ere this to be quietly in our haven.  What means yonder bright light?  Is it a star in the heavens, or does it merely lie against the side of the huge mountain?”

“There shines old Roger de Blonay!” cried the baron, heartily; “he knows of our being in the bark, and he has fired his beacon that we may steer by its light.”

The conjecture seemed probable, for, while the day remained, the castle of Blonay, seated on the bosom of the mountain that shelters Vevey to the north-east, had been plainly visible.  It had been much admired, a pleasing object in a view that was so richly studded with hamlets and castles, and Adelheid had pointed it out to Sigismund as the immediate goal of her journey.  The lord of Blonay being apprized of the intended visit nothing was more probable than that he, an old and tried friend of Melchior de Willading’s should show this sign of impatience; partly in compliment to those whom he expected, and partly as a signal that might be really useful to those who navigated the Leman, in a night that threatened so much murky obscurity.