"
Seraphitus looked at the flowery mound on which he had seated Minna;
then he turned and faced the frowning heights, whose pinnacles were
wrapped in clouds; to them he cast, unspoken, the remainder of his
thoughts.
"Minna, do you hear those delightful strains?" he said after a pause,
with the voice of a dove, for the eagle's cry was hushed; "it is like
the music of those Eolian harps your poets hang in forests and on the
mountains. Do you see the shadowy figures passing among the clouds,
the winged feet of those who are making ready the gifts of heaven?
They bring refreshment to the soul; the skies are about to open and
shed the flowers of spring upon the earth. See, a gleam is darting
from the pole. Let us fly, let us fly! It is time we go!"
In a moment their skees were refastened, and the pair descended the
Falberg by the steep slopes which join the mountain to the valleys of
the Sieg. Miraculous perception guided their course, or, to speak more
properly, their flight. When fissures covered with snow intercepted
them, Seraphitus caught Minna in his arms and darted with rapid
motion, lightly as a bird, over the crumbling causeways of the abyss.
Sometimes, while propelling his companion, he deviated to the right or
left to avoid a precipice, a tree, a projecting rock, which he seemed
to see beneath the snow, as an old sailor, familiar with the ocean,
discerns the hidden reefs by the color, the trend, or the eddying of
the water.
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