of wine, and discharging hurrahs along the road—­met him on the bridge over the roaring Oglio, just out of Edolo, and gave him news of the fugitives.  ‘Both of them were at the big hotel in Bormio,’ said Jacob; ’and I set up a report that the Stelvio was watched; and so it is.’  He added that he thought they were going to separate; he had heard something to that effect; he believed that the young lady was bent upon crossing one of the passes to Meran.  Last night it had devolved on him to kiss away the tears of the young lady’s maid, a Valtelline peasant-girl, who deplored the idea of an expedition over the mountains, and had, with the usual cat-like tendencies of these Italian minxes, torn his cheek in return for his assiduities.  Jacob displayed the pretty scratch obtained in the Herr Captain’s service, and got his money for having sighted Vittoria and seen double.  Weisspriess decided in his mind that Angelo had now separated from her (or rather, she from him) for safety.  He thought it very probable that she would likewise fly to Switzerland.  Yet, knowing that there was the attraction of many friends for her at Meran, he conceived that he should act more prudently by throwing himself on that line, and he sped Jacob Baumwalder along the Valtelline by Val Viola, up to Ponte in the Engadine, with orders to seize her if he could see her, and have her conveyed to Cles, in Tyrol.  Vittoria being only by the gentlest interpretation of her conduct not under interdict, an unscrupulous Imperial officer might in those military times venture to employ the gendarmerie for his own purposes, if he could but give a plausible colour of devotion to the Imperial interests.

The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, taking a guide from the skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted the Val Camonica, climbed the Tonale, and reached Vermiglio in the branch valley of that name, scientifically observing the features of the country as he went.  At Vermiglio he encountered a brother officer of one of his former regiments, a fat major on a tour of inspection, who happened to be a week behind news of the army, and detained him on the pretext of helping him on his car—­a mockery that drove Weisspriess to the perpetual reply, ’You are my superior officer,’ which reduced the major to ask him whether he had been degraded a step.  As usual, Weisspriess was pushed to assert his haughtiness, backed by the shadow of his sword.  ’I am a man with a family,’ said the major, modestly.  ’Then I shall call you my superior officer while they allow you to remain so,’ returned Weisspriess, who scorned a married soldier.

‘I aspired to the Staff once myself,’ said the major.  ’Unfortunately, I grew in girth—­the wrong way for ambition.  I digest, I assimilate with a fatal ease.  Stout men are doomed to the obscurer paths.  You may quote Napoleon as a contrary instance.  I maintain positively that his day was over, his sun was eclipsed, when his valet had to loosen the buckles of his waistcoat and breech.  Now, what do you say?’