“You will not venture along that shelf while it is so thick, Melchior?” said Dale.
“Oh yes, herr. We must not wait here.”
“But the danger!”
“There is scarcely any, herr,” replied the guide. “The great danger is of going astray. We cannot go wrong here. We have only to go along the shelf to the end.”
“But it is like going along the edge of a precipice in the dark.”
“It is like darkness, and more confusing, herr; but we have the wall on our left to steady us, and where we are is terribly exposed. Trust me, sir.”
“Forward!” said Dale quietly. “Keep the rope fairly tight.”
Melchior stepped at once on to the ledge, and the others followed, all three going cautiously and very slowly through the opaque mist, which looked so solid at Saxe’s feet that more than once he was ready to make a false step, while he wondered in himself that he did not feel more alarm, but attributed the cause rightly to the fact that he could not see the danger yawning below. To make the passage along this ledge the more perilous and strange, each was invisible to the other, and their voices in the awful solitude sounded muffled and strange.
As Saxe stepped cautiously along, feeling his way by the wall and beating the edge of the precipice with the handle of his ice-axe, he felt over again the sensations he had had in passing along there that morning. But the dread was not so keen—only lest there should be a sudden strain on the rope caused by one of them slipping; and he judged rightly that, had one of them gone over the precipice here, nothing could have saved the others, for there was no good hold that they could seize, to bear up against the sudden jerk.
“Over!” shouted Melchior at last. “Steady, herr—steady! Don’t hurry! That’s it: give me your hand.”