“What!” said she, impatiently; “am I so short a distance from my object, and must I draw back because the passage is not quite safe? No! it is fear that makes me awkward; every day I accomplish things far more difficult than this.”
She set her foot resolutely on the trunk, and found, to her surprise, that it grew firmer as she went on.
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“Why, I am on a wooden bridge,” said she, when she got half-way over. “Nay, indeed, it’s a fine stone bridge,” she cried, as she reached the farther shore.
Of a truth, my children, fear doubles the importance of most obstacles, for it deprives us of half die faculties which should assist us to overcome them. Take away the ape’s intrepidity and give it to man, and man will become as agile as the ape.
Mitaine saw before her but one road, and set out resolutely along it’ although it wras so narrow that she brushed the rock on either side with her shoulders. It was, in fact, less a path than a cleft in the mountain side. She pushed forward on tip-toe, wondering a little what she should find at the other end of this burrow. Suddenly her head encountered an obstacle, and she discovered that the passage had become so low, that she must stoop to continue her path.
“Do they want to bury me alive?” The thought made her hair bristle; and not without reason, I can assure you, for she was in utter darkness, with hardly a breath of air, and every instant she felt the four walls closing in.