“Oh, I don’t know,” said Saxe; “I suppose I do. But I was thinking that he might have made a mistake. Shall I go first?”
“No, herr; I am the guide,” said Melchior quietly; and he began the descent pretty rapidly, but stopped at the foot of each more difficult part to look up and wait for the others. Sometimes he drove the sharp end of his ice-axe into the earth or some crevice, and held it there to act as a step for the others to descend; and at other times he pressed himself against the rock and offered his shoulders as resting-places for their feet, constantly on the watch to lessen the difficulties and guard against dangers in a place where a slip of a few feet might have resulted in the unfortunate person who fell rolling lower with increasing impetus, and the slip developing into a terrible accident.
“It is farther than I thought,” said Saxe, as they reached the bottom of the steep bluff from which they had viewed the glacier; and he stepped back a few yards to look up. “The places really are so much bigger than they look. Why, I say, Mr Dale, the glacier seems quite high up from here, and ever so much farther off.”
“And it will look bigger still when we reach the cave where the river comes out.”
“So!” said Melchior quietly; and he went on, now down the stony slope of the valley, to reach the river bed near its source, with the sides of the thal seeming to grow steeper and higher, and one of the waterfalls they were near infinitely more beautiful, for they had now reached the point necessary for seeing the lovely iris which spanned the cascade, turning its seething spray into a segment of an arch of the most vivid colours, at which the lad seemed disposed to gaze for an indefinite time.
“Vorwarts,” said the guide quietly; and they obeyed, following his lead till they reached the spot where the clear waters of the fall glided into the dingy stream, and then followed the latter up and up for quite half an hour before Saxe stopped short, and took off his straw hat to wipe his steaming forehead, as he gazed up at the end of the glacier; he was now so low down that the surface was invisible, and facing him there was a curve rising up and up, looking like a blunted set of natural steps.
“Well?” said Dale, inquiringly.
“I can’t make it out,” said Saxe, rather breathlessly. “It seems as if that thing were playing games with us, and growing bigger and shrinking away farther at every step one takes.”
“Yes,” said Dale, “it is giving you a lesson that you will not easily forget.”
“But it looked quite small when we were up there,” cried Saxe, nodding toward the tower-like bluff they had climbed, again at the top of the glacier.