He leapt from one rock to another at the risk of a sprain, at the risk

of falling into the vague depths below. To save himself when he slipped

on the rock or on the ice, he caught hold of handfuls of weeds and

furze, thick with thorns, and their points ran into his fingers. At

times he came on an easier declivity, taking breath as he descended;

then came on the precipice again, and each step necessitated an

expedient. In descending precipices, every movement solves a problem.

One must be skilful under pain of death. These problems the child solved

with an instinct which would have made him the admiration of apes and

mountebanks. The descent was steep and long. Nevertheless he was coming

to the end of it.

Little by little it was drawing nearer the moment when he should land on

the Isthmus, of which from time to time he caught a glimpse. At

intervals, while he bounded or dropped from rock to rock, he pricked up

his ears, his head erect, like a listening deer. He was hearkening to a

diffused and faint uproar, far away to the left, like the deep note of a

clarion. It was a commotion of winds, preceding that fearful north blast

which is heard rushing from the pole, like an inroad of trumpets. At the

same time the child felt now and then on his brow, on his eyes, on his

cheeks, something which was like the palms of cold hands being placed on

his face. These were large frozen flakes, sown at first softly in space,

then eddying, and heralding a snowstorm. The child was covered with

them. The snowstorm, which for the last hour had been on the sea, was

beginning to gain the land. It was slowly invading the plains. It was

entering obliquely, by the north-west, the tableland of Portland.

106

The Man Who Laughs