“I knew that there was bound to be one by the lay of the land. Now look,” he went on, pointing to the main crevasse, which yawned broadly parallel to the line they were pursuing, and out of which a lateral one sprung, and seeming to change its mind, had abruptly terminated—apparently so, at any rate. “I knew that this other crack wasn’t going to end there, although it seems to; it was too deep to start with. Consequently I knew that it was bound to run a considerable way under the surface, and so it does. A dozen more steps, I repeat, and one or both of you would have disappeared for ever.”
“By Jove!” ejaculated Phil again, in mingled admiration and dismay, while Alma shuddered, as she gazed into the ghastly death-trap with a horrible fascination.
“At the same time you’re wrong in saying there is no sign or difference of colour in the surface,” went on Fordham. “There is the last—faint I admit—but quite enough to catch a practised eye. And now, while we are prosing away here, the other people are waiting for us over on the moraine yonder. So keep close behind me, and let’s get out of this.”
Under such able and experienced pilotage they soon got clear of the more dangerous part of the glacier—doubling and zigzaging in the most labyrinthine fashion to avoid perils hidden or displayed.
“You can’t afford to go playing about among bottomless pits in any such careless way, Phil, still more among masked deathtraps like some of those we passed,” said Fordham, as they drew near their party. “So if you must go skylarking on dangerous ground, you’d better have some one with you who knows the ropes rather more than you do, and not rather less.”
But this recollection of peril past added something of a spice to the keen enjoyment of a delightful day as they took their way homeward. And then, as they left the wild wilderness of rocks and ice behind, the great silent glaciers and piled masses of rugged moraine, the westering sunlight flushing upon the soaring peaks as with a glow of fire, to these two it meant one more day closing as it had begun—in a golden unearthly beauty—closing into a brief night, which in its turn should soon melt into another glowing day, even as this one which had just fled. But—would it?
“Two people have arrived, sir,” said the head waiter, meeting Philip in the hall. “Dey ask for you, sir, first thing. One gentleman and lady.”
“Gentleman and lady?” echoed Phil, in amazement. “Who the deuce can it be? Who are they, Franz?”
“I not know, sir. Dey ask first for you; then they ask if we cannot send messenger to find you. I tell them you away to the Mountet cabin—you come back quick as the messenger.”