This idea seemed so droll that he could not refrain from smiling.
“Rather a queer way of keeping watch,” he said, “going off like that. Never mind: there’s nothing much to steal, and no one to steal it. But I suppose I ought to stop; only the worst of it is, if I stop here I begin feeling hungry.”
The temptation came over him to examine the stores which Melchior had brought on the previous day, but he resisted it; and by dint of walking about using Dale’s glass to examine the different peaks and snowfields in the distance, the time passed till Dale woke with a start and sprang up.
“Ah, Saxe, my lad, have I overslept myself?—No? Well, it’s time I was up. All right? That’s well. Now, this ought to be an important day for us,” he continued, as he rapidly prepared himself for the journey. “We must creep into that grotto somehow, and with plenty of light. I expect we shall find it quite a treasure-house. But,” he said at last, “I think you may wake up Melchior now.”
“I am awake, herr,” said the guide, rising. “It is just the time I had settled to sleep.”
In a few minutes they were ready for breakfast, and as they began Melchior drew from the pannier a portion of the provision he had brought, smiling as he placed it upon the slab of rock which served them as a table.
“What are you laughing at?” said Saxe.
“Oh, only about being a boy like you once, herr, and thinking that when I was your age I too could eat one breakfast and feel ready for another in an hour.”
“I felt ready for one an hour ago, but I didn’t have one,” said Saxe. “No, it was two hours ago.”
“But the herr did have a breakfast one or two hours ago.”