The block they turned over was roughly cylindrical, and turned over pretty readily upon their using their axe handles as levers, and at last they had it close to the brink of the awful chasm, and paused for a few moments.
“No fear of its hurting any one—eh, Saxe?” said Dale; but he spoke seriously, for the terrible nature of the place impressed him, and before going farther the two again peered down into the awful gulf.
The effect was the same on each—a peculiar shrinking, as the thought came—“Suppose I were to fall?”
“Well, Saxe,” said Dale, “shall we push the piece down?”
Saxe nodded, and placed the handle of his axe under the block. Dale did the same. They raised their hands together, and the great block went over and dropped out of sight, while they stood listening and waiting for the heavy bellowing crash, which seemed as if it would never come, and then far exceeded in violence anything they had imagined.
“It isn’t stupid is it, to feel a bit frightened of such a place?” said Saxe, with his face all in wrinkles.
“I should say the person must be very dense and stupid who is not frightened of such an awful place. Here, let’s get on: it seems rather waste of time to spend it going to these crevasses again; but it is interesting all the same.”
They started upward now, and went nearly exactly over the same ground as before, till the upper crevasse was reached; and after going through the same performance of sending down a block of ice, Dale suggested that as it would be unwise to go farther up the glacier, here covered with snow, without the help of the guide, they should make for the side of the gorge, and at the first opening climb up and make their way over the lower slopes of the mountain, and so back to camp.