"He fell back into the ravine."
It scorched his head, and his tongue was dry, as he worked his way upward with great exertion. Then, suddenly, he was seized with the fear that, after all his trouble, he would not be able to reach his destination. The blood went to his head more and more; he abused the infernal wine that he had swallowed in the morning, and was forced to think of the white blossoms that had been pointed out to him the day before. They grew here too. He shuddered. What if it were true, he thought, that there were powers which enthrall our heart and senses, and bend a man's will to a girl's whim? better any extremity than such a disgrace! rather death than slavery! "But no, no! a lie can only conquer one who believes in it. Be a man, Filippo; forward, the summit is before you; but a short while, and this cursed haunted mountain will be left behind for ever!"
And yet he could not calm the fever in his veins. Each stone, each slippery place, every bare pine-branch hanging before him, were obstacles which he surmounted only by an almost superhuman effort of will. When he at last arrived at the top, and still holding to the last bush, swung himself on to the summit, he could not look about him for the rapid coursing of the blood to his head, and the blinding, dazzling light of the sun on the yellow rocks around. Furiously he rubbed his forehead, and passed his fingers through his tangled hair as he lifted his hat. But then he heard his name again in real earnest, and gazed horror-struck in the direction from which came the sound. And there, a few paces from him, Fenice sat on a rock just as he had left her, gazing at him with intensely happy eyes.
"At last you have come, Filippo!" she said, earnestly. "I expected you sooner."
"Spirit of evil," he shrieked, beside himself, and inwardly torn in two by horror and attraction, "do you still mock me who have been wandering distressed in these forsaken places, and with the sun beating down into my very brain? Is it any triumph for you that I am forced to see you, only to curse you once again? By heaven, though I have found you, I have not sought you, and you will lose me yet."
She shook her head with a strange smile. "Something attracts you without your knowledge," she said. "You would find me though all the mountains in the world were between us, for I mixed with your wine seven drops of the dog's heart-blood. Poor Fuoco! He loved me and hated you. Thus will you hate the Filippo who so lately cast me off, and will find peace only if you love me. Do you see now, Filippo, that I have conquered you at last? Come, now I will again show you the way to Genoa, my darling, my beloved, my husband!"
And she stood up and would have embraced him; but the sight of his face suddenly startled her. He turned all at once pale as death, only the white of the eyes was red; his lips moved, but no sound came; his hat had fallen from his head, and with his hands he violently waved off her approach.
"A dog! a dog!" were the first words he with difficulty ejaculated. "No, no, no! you shall not conquer—demon that you are. Better a dead man than a living dog!" Thereupon he burst into a peal of terrible laughter, and slowly, as though he fought hard for each step, his eyes fixed and staring at the girl, he staggered and fell back into the ravine behind him.
For an instant her head swam, and all seemed dark around her. She pressed her hands to her heart, and when she saw the tall form disappear over the edge of the rock, she gave a scream which resounded through the ravine like the cry of a falcon. She tottered forward a few steps, and then stood straight and upright, her hands still pressed to her heart. "Madonna!" she exclaimed mechanically.
