“Yes. Don’t you know you are about eleven or twelve thousand feet above sea-level?”
“I know we are terribly high.”
“Yes, and the air is so thin and rarefied that breathing is hard work. That’s nothing. Now for a good rest and refresh. We must not stay up here very long.”
“No, herr,” said the guide, spreading the contents of the wallet on the rocks in the sunshine. “The weather changes quickly up these mountains. Look! yonder the mists are gathering already.”
He pointed to the clouds hanging round the nearest peak, as they sat down and ate with mountaineers’ appetites, till, just as they were ending, Melchior rose—rather excitedly for him.
“Look!” he said, pointing: “you do not often see that.”
He pointed to where the landscape, with its peaks and vales, was blotted out by a peculiar-looking sunlit haze, in which were curious, misty, luminous bodies; and as they looked, there, each moment growing more distinct, were three gigantic human figures, whose aspect, in his highly strained state, seemed awful to one of the lookers-on.
“Change of weather, Melchior,” said Dale.
“Perhaps, herr; but I think we shall have plenty of time to get down first.”
“What is it?” said Saxe, whose eyes were fixed upon the strange apparition.