So irksome was the monotony and so
uncongenial the role forced upon them by disguise, they hailed with
joy the least circumstance that might be the harbinger of a change.
It is at hand. Once more the excitement of chase! The vigilance of
their astute father has placed them again in the caleche, and spirited
horses are galloping from the Swiss capital.
News from Paris has arrived; the failure, the flight, the reward, are
passed around in a sensational romance, and the disappearance of two
police officers lends the charms of mystery to the embellished rumor.
Cassier--the hero of the tale, the unsuspected guilty one--went around
and told the news with all the sanctimonious whining and eye-uplifting
of a ranting preacher. In the meantime he matured his plans, and
before suspicion could point her finger at him he fled to another
retreat to elude for a while the justice of man to meet his awful
doom from the hands of God.
During the night Cassier and his children ascend the terrific pass of
the Tete Noir; he proposes to hide from the threatened storm in the
cloister of Martigny. This is a venerable Benedictine monastery,
erected in the eleventh century by a Catholic prince, under the
sanction of Urban II., possessing, besides many other privileges,
that of sanctuary for fugitive prisoners.
The dangers of the road and the fear of pursuit lent additional terror
to the wild mountain scenery; at one moment they are dizzy looking
into awful chasms formed by huge perpendicular rocks; then the
overhanging cliffs would seem every moment to break from their frail
support and rush down the steep mountain in an avalanche of stone.
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