CHAPTER XIV 



RoNDA, March i. 



Fairly in among the mountains. In among the toppling 

 crags, that lean with rugged elbows on the brink of rushing 

 mountain-streams, — and glass their overhanging brows in 

 dark clear pools, — and dip long-trailing branches down to 

 catch the floating flakes of froth that slowly sail on oily- 

 dimpling eddies round and round. 



In among the tall, majestic giantesses of the prime, who 

 awfully look down through leagues of filmy distance on the 

 green winding valleys and ravines of the fairy-land they 

 guard. To woo them, clouds, those vague and mournful 

 bridegroom-ghosts, exiled from their native ocean-plains, 

 come trooping sullenly before the shrill host of iEolus, and 

 here find refuge. 



Here they throw their long pale arms around the stately 

 maidens of the Sierra, on whose broad bosoms pillowed, 

 they weep themselves away. They perish, but leave a noble 

 race of rivers that, in the pride of youth, and led by an inborn 

 instinct, leap joyously down to the sea. There they enlist 

 among the turbulent billows, that clap their hands with a 

 shout, and wrestle with the blast, till, slain by a treacherous 

 smile of sunshine, the thin and vaporous ghosts are dispersed 

 and driven away to revive, Anteus-Hke, by the touch of their 

 mother earth. 



In order to mislead any of the blood-hounds who might 



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