“Yes, herr: so suddenly that I had not time to use my axe, and before I could utter a cry I was falling fast down into the dark depths. I believe I did cry out for help, but the noise of ice and snow falling and breaking on a ledge some way down drowned my voice; and as I turned over in the air, I felt that I had made my last climb, and that the end had come, as I had known it come to better guides.”
“There are no better guides,” said Saxe warmly.
“No!” echoed Dale, and they saw the man’s face flush a little through his swarthy skin, and his eyes brighten.
“Oh yes, herrs,” he said; “but we all try to do our best. What was I saying? I remember: that I was falling down and down, and set my teeth and held my axe with both hands to try and strike if I should reach a slope, so as to stop myself; but there was nothing but the black walls of ice on either side and the roar of waters below. I thought of this as I prepared myself for being broken on the cruel rocks beneath: a great deal to think, herrs, in so short a time, but thoughts come quickly when one is falling. Then I was plunged suddenly into deep, roaring water, and felt myself swept round and then onward as if I had been once more in the schlucht; for I had fallen into one of the great water holes in the river below the gletscher, and then was carried along.”
“How horrible!” ejaculated Saxe. “Was it very dark?”
“So black that a man might do without eyes, herr,” said Melchior, smiling sadly.
“You could not swim in water like that!”
“No, herr; and it was so cold that it deadened a man’s strength. But I knew I must fight for my life, for I said to myself I had my two English herrs above there on the gletscher, and how could they find their way back from the wilderness of ice? Then I thought of how the little river must run, and I could tell—for I knew it must be very much like the places where I have looked up from the end of gletschers (glaciers you call them)—that there would be deep holes worn in the rock where great stones are always whirling round and grinding the hollows deeper. These would be hard to pass; but I hoped by clinging to the side to get by them without being drowned. They were not what I feared.”
“Then what did you fear!” cried Saxe excitedly; for the guide had paused.
“The narrow pieces, where the water touched the roof, herr. I knew it was far down to the foot of the glacier, and that there must be many long hollows where the water rushed through as in a great pipe; and if they were too long, I felt that I could never get my breath again, but that I should be thrown out at the bottom dead.”