“Not very safe—eh, Melchior?” said Dale.
“No, herr; we must not venture far from the edge.”
This vast glacier had also shrunk, leaving from ten to twenty feet of smoothly polished rock at the side—that is, at the foot of the precipitous gorge down which it ran—and thus forming a comparatively easy path for the travellers, who climbed upwards over the rounded masses, stopping from time to time where the ice curved over, leaving spaces between it and its rocky bed, down which Saxe gazed into a deep blue dimness, and listened to the murmuring roar of many waters coursing along beneath.
Suddenly Dale uttered an ejaculation, and, taking a hammer from his belt, began to climb up the rocky side of the valley.
Melchior saw the place for which he was making, and uttered a grunt indicative of satisfaction.
The spot beneath which Dale stopped was only a dark-looking crack; but as Saxe went nearer he could see that it was edged with dark-coloured crystals set closely together, and resembling in size and shape the teeth of a small saw.
Dale began to probe the crack directly with the handle of his ice-axe, to find that the crevice gradually widened; and on applying his mouth there and shouting, he could feel that it was a great opening.
“There ought to be big crystals in there, Melchior,” cried Dale excitedly.
“Yes, herr; but without you brought powder and blasting tools you could not get at them, and if you did blast you would break them up.”
Dale said nothing, but laying down his ice-axe he took hammer and chisel and began to chip energetically at the hard rock, while the others looked on till he ceased hammering, with a gesture full of impatience.