The mule hesitated. The water was right over the track here, and the animal bent down, sniffed and pawed at it as if uneasy; but a few more words from Melchior made it go on a few steps very slowly, and continually trying its way, so as to get a good foothold before going on, and acting in a wonderfully human way by pressing itself very close to the rock.
“I hardly think we ought to venture, Melchior,” said Dale.
“Oh yes, herr. We know the extent of the danger. Gros swims like a dog, and you know he was none the worse for the last fall.”
“Go on, then.”
The mule was already going on. Finding the water more shallow on the ledge, it progressed with a little confidence, for the ledge eloped upward, and it could see the damp stone clear of the water a short distance on.
“There, herr, you see,” said the guide, after they had waded with the water just over their boots to the clear stone ledge along which the mule went on steadily now, “there is nothing to mind here.”
“I am glad you think so,” said Dale, shouting loudly, to make his voice heard beyond Saxe, who was between, and they were getting now within reach of the reverberating roar of the torrent.
Saxe glanced down as they passed the angles and gradually entered the semi-darkness, and saw that the surface of the water was smoother, and that, as they passed the waves formed by the water being hurled against the opposing faces of the rock, there was less foam and turmoil; but these places looked, if anything, more terrible than before, and the water, as it surged up so much nearer his feet, looked to his excited vision as if stealthily writhing towards him to lap round his legs like some huge serpent, and snatch him down into the depths.
Conversation was impossible, but the guide shouted a few words of encouragement to the mule, and from time to time waited for Saxe to come close up, when he shouted an inquiry or two in his ear.
“Yes, all right,” cried Saxe, who gained encouragement from the calm matter-of-fact way in which the guide went on; while, just dimly-seen as the gorge curved and wound, the mule trudged on, twitching its ears and evidently caring nothing for the turmoil and rush just below.