"Trinkgeldt!" cried O'Toole, and the berlin rocked and lurched and leaped down the pass.

The snow was now less deep, the drifts fewer.

The road wound along a mountain-side: at one window rose the rock; from the other the travellers looked down hundreds of feet to the bed of the valley and the boiling torrent of the Adige.

It was a mere narrow ribbon of a road made by the Romans, without a thought for the convenience of travellers in a later day; and as the carriage turned a corner, O'Toole, mounted on his horse, saw ahead a heavy cart crawling up towards them.

The carter saw the berlin thundering down towards him behind its four maddened horses, and he drew his cart to the inside of the road against the rock.