“Will the herr come back with me, or shall I go alone?”
“Go alone, Melchior, and be as quick back as you can.”
The next morning when they woke the guide and the mule were gone, probably having started at the first faint dawn.
“Are you going to wait about the tent till he comes back, sir?” said Saxe, as they sat over the breakfast they had prepared.
“No: we will have two or three little excursions of our own, just up to and along the edge of the snow-line; but to-day I should like to visit the glacier again, and see those two crevasses coolly.”
An hour after they were well on their way, knowledge having made the task comparatively easy. But it was rather a risky journey, before they had arrived at the spot which was pretty deeply impressed upon their minds: for every now and then some mass of worn ice fell crashing down, and raised the echoes of the narrow valley, while a cool wind seemed to have been set free by the fall, and went sighing down the gorge.
They were prepared to find the lower crevasse, from which they had recovered Melchior, much less terrible by daylight. To their surprise, it was far more vast and grand, and as they advanced cautiously to the edge and peered down into the blue depths, they both drew breath and gazed at each other with a peculiarly inquiring look.
There were the notches Saxe had cut, but partly melted down by the action of the sun; there, too, were the holes chipped out and used to anchor the ice-axe; and then, as if fascinated by the place, Saxe advanced again to the edge.
“Take care!” said Dale warningly.
“Yes. I only want to see if I can make out the slope up which he climbed.”