There was another dreary pause, during which they listened to the waters’ roar; and Melchior bent down again, and rose to his feet once more, with his brow rugged.
“Rising,” he said hoarsely; and then he leaned back against the rock with his arms crossed and his eyes half-closed, silent as his companions, for talking was painfully laborious at such a time.
An hour must have passed, and every time Melchior bent down he rose with the same stern look upon his countenance, the darkness making it heavier-looking and more weird. Both Saxe and Dale could see the difference plainly now, for it must have been a foot higher at least, and they knew it was only a matter of time before it would reach their feet.
And as Saxe stood there, miserably dejected, he began thinking and picturing to himself the snow melting and trickling down thousands of tiny cracks which netted the tops of the mountains, and then joined together in greater veins, and these again in greater, till they formed rushing streams, and lastly rivers, which thundered into the lake.
Then he began thinking of his school-days, and then of his life at home, and the intense delight he had felt at the prospect of coming out to the Alps with Dale, the pleasures he had anticipated, and how lightly he had treated all allusions to danger.
“I’ll be careful,” he had said: “I can take care of myself.” And as he recalled all this, he dolefully asked himself how he could be careful at a time like this.
He was in the midst of these musings when Melchior bent down again, and rose once more so quickly, that Dale shouted to him.
“Rising? Shall we jump in and swim for it at once.”
“No, herr; we must wait.”
“Ah! look—look!” cried Saxe, pointing downward.