Still silent.
Saxe bent over the Swiss, and then turned away.
“Well, he can sleep,” he muttered: “seems only to have to shut his eyes, and he is off.”
It did not occur to him that he was as great an adept at sleeping as the guide, and he turned away, half ill-humouredly, to finish his rough toilet, and then he busied himself in making preparations for breakfast, which entailed a severe fight with self, for a sensation of hunger soon developed itself. But he won by a vigorous effort, and, after all was ready, forced himself away from the fire and the kettle, walking right out of the niche, to stand watching the glorious changes on the mountain peaks, and the lines of light slowly creeping, downward and driving out the shadows where it was still night while high up amongst the glittering ice fields it was glorious day.
“Oh, how different it all looks in the sunshine!” thought Saxe. “Which did he say was the Blitzenhorn? I forget.”
Then he began to think about the day’s work before them—the tramp up beside the glacier, the climb along the black ravine, right in among the mountains, and the exploration of the caves.
“Well, we shall have found some crystals to take back,” he thought. “Wish it was breakfast time, though. What am I to do to amuse myself till Mr Dale wakes?”
At that moment a peculiar whinnying noise fell upon his ears, and he started off down the mountain side in the direction from which the sound had come.
“Better company than none,” he said, laughing. “Here: where are you, old chap?”
There was of course no answer, and he was some little time before he could make out the mule, whose colour assimilated wonderfully with the browny-grey rocks. But at last he saw it, end on, standing gazing up a narrow valley, and climbed down to find that it was in the midst of a fair spread of short whortleberry growth, whose shoots had evidently been his fare.