“No, herr: it would be madness to try. Some of them would give way at the least touch. Stand back a little, and I’ll show you why it is dangerous to climb among the seracs.”
He stepped aside, and, using his axe, deftly chipped off a piece of ice from a block—a fragment about as large as an ordinary paving-stone.
“Hold my axe, sir,” he said; and on Saxe taking it, the man picked up the block he had chipped off, walked a little way from them, and, after looking about a little, signed to them to watch, as he hurled the lump from him, after raising it above his head. As he threw it, he ran back toward them, and the piece fell with a crash between two spires which projected from the icy barrier.
There was a crash, and then the effect was startling. Both the spires, whose bases must have been worn nearly through by the action of sun and water, came down with a roar, bringing other fragments with them, and leaving more looking as if they were tottering to their fall.
Then up rose what seemed to be a cloud of diamond dust, glittering in the bright sunshine, a faint echo or two came from high up the rocky face of the valley, and then all was silent once more.
“You see?” said Melchior. “Why, often a touch of a hand, or even a shout, will bring them tumbling down. Always keep away from the seracs.”
He led them now at a safe distance across the glacier to the left, till a wide opening presented itself, through which they passed on to comparatively smooth ice; but even this was all piled together, wedged in blocks, which made the party seem, as Saxe said, like so many ants walking about in a barrel of loaf sugar.
Then there was a smoother stretch, all longitudinal furrows, up which they passed fairly well—that is to say, with only a few falls—till they went round a curve; and there they paused, breathless and wondering.
“Why, that was only a peep down below,” cried Saxe. “Look, Mr Dale! look!”
He had cause to exclaim, for from where they stood they had an opening before them right up a side valley running off from the glacier at a sharp angle. This, too, was filled by a glacier, a tributary of the one they were upon, and with the sides of the minor valley covered with snow wherever the slope was sufficient to hold it. Beyond rose peak after peak, flashing pure and white—higher and higher; and even the hollows between them filled with soft-looking pillows and cushions of dazzling snow.