White Motley by Max Pemberton

The cold was less as he began to descend amid the gentle mountains of the Ticino, and he knew that the night was won.

Behind him, far away where the white caps marked the encircling mountains of the Simplon, the storm must be raging furiously, he thought. More than once a gust of the wind, tearing through a breach of the southern spurs, had flung him headlong, as a leaf is whirled by the winter blast. There had been a time when all sensation left him, when hands and feet were stiff and powerless; when the very skin of his face was as dried parchment. He made light of that, for the kindlier country lay before him, and if he gained it, this were not too high a price to pay.