222 NOVEL DANGERS TERRIBLE. 



pied, as was that we are speaking of, in the business of life ; 

 but at the particular period of our relation, Danger, and Death 

 behind 1dm, began suddenly to trip up their heels in a manner 

 so new and so mysterious, as to make the most heedless look 

 very seriously about them, and hence only arose the panic 

 Terror, wliich came for awhile to lord it over them. 



The capital of their republic, which was built upon Italian 

 soil, we shall call Monticelloj and it was upon one of the 

 principal thoroughfares communicating with this city, that the 

 common enemy first began that unusual and ill-mannered 

 mode of attack to which we have alluded. This highway had 

 been traversed by many successive generations, to whom no- 

 t hing had thereon befallen, excepting accidents of usual occur- 

 rence ; but one day, as a party of some eight or ten indivi- 

 duals were quietly pursuing their way along what they sup- 

 posed to be, as heretofore 1 , a solid causeway, they came sud- 

 denly upon the edge of a deep and wide abyss. 



Thus taken by surprise, two or three lost their footing, and 

 rolled at once down the shelving side of tliis strange pitfall. 

 The others might perhaps have maintained their equilibrium, 

 but, blinded and overthrown by a shower of sand, rising from 

 the hollow before them, as if from the crater of a volcano, 

 they also, with exception of one who returned to tell the tale, 

 were precipitated down the fatal descent. 



The road whereon this alarming occurrence took place \\ as 

 speedily abandoned, it was made, in fact, impassable ; but in 



