a carpet as smooth as a mirror, making three steps forward and two backward.  Great drops of perspiration started out on his brow, and he sat down for a moment to wipe them away, hoping that some wood-cutter might appear and show him the way back to the path, if there was one.  But no human soul came within sight; and plucking up his courage again he resumed the ascent, until he had nearly reached a breastwork of rock, in which he vainly sought an opening.  He was about retracing his steps when he remembered that from the gallery of the hotel he had observed this breastwork of reddish rock, and it seemed to him that he remembered also that it formed the buttress of the mountain-stronghold of which he was in quest; and so he concluded that this would be the last obstacle he would have to overcome.  He thought that it would be actually humiliating to be so near the goal and yet renounce it.  The rock, worn by the frost, presented sundry crevices and indentures, forming a natural stairway.  Arming himself with all his strength, and making free use of his nails, he undertook to scale it, and in five minutes had gained a sort of plateau, which, unluckily for him, he found to be commanded by a smooth granite wall of a fearful height.  The only satisfactory procedure for him now was to return whence he had come; but in these perilous passages to ascend is easier than to descend; it being impossible to choose one’s steps, descent might lead to a rather undesirable adventure.  M. Moriaz did not dare to risk this adventure.

He walked the whole length of the plateau where he found himself in the hope of discovering some outlet; but the sole outlet he could discover had already been monopolized by a mountain-torrent whose troubled waters noisily precipitated themselves through it to the depths below.  This torrent was much too wide to wade, and to think of leaping over it would have been preposterous.  All retreat being cut off, M. Moriaz began to regret his audacity.  Seized by a sudden agony of alarm, he began to ask himself if he was not condemned to end his days in this eagle’s-nest; he thought with envy of the felicity of the inhabitants of the plains; he cast piteous glances at the implacable wall whose frowning visage seemed to reproach him with his imprudence.  It seemed to him that the human mind never had devised anything more beautiful than a great highway; and it would have taken little to make him exclaim with Panurge, “Oh, thrice—­ay, quadruply—­happy those who plant cabbages!”

Although there seemed small chance of his being heard in this solitude, he called aloud several times; he had great difficulty in raising his voice above the noise of the cataract.  Suddenly he believed that he heard below him a distant voice replying to his call.  He redoubled his cries, and it seemed to him that the voice drew nearer, and soon he saw emerging from the thicket bordering the opposite bank of the torrent a pale face with chestnut beard, which he remembered having beheld in the cathedral at Chur, and to have seen again at Bergun.