“Nearly to where I broke through the snow crust. You will see.”
Saxe went on cautiously, still seeing nothing till he was close upon the hole, which was a fairly wide opening, a quantity of half-frozen snow having given way as the guide’s weight rested upon it, and dropped into the black-looking rift, which was lightly bridged over on either side by the snow.
“Lean over if you like, and hang on by the rope,” said Melchior, “if you want to look down.”
Saxe could not say he did not want to look down, for there was a strange fascination about the place which seemed to draw him. But he resisted, and after a quick glance at the thick snow which arched over the crevasse, he drew back; and Melchior led on again, striking the shaft of his ice-axe handle down through the crust before him at every step, and divining, by long practice and the colour of the snow, the direction of the crevasse so well, that he only once diverged from the edge sufficiently for the handle to go right down.
“We can cross here,” he said at last.
“Are you sure?” said Dale.
The guide smiled, and stamped heavily right across.
“We are beyond the end of the crevasse,” he said; and once more they went on upward.
“These cracks make the glacier very dangerous,” observed Dale, after a few minutes.
“Not with a rope and care,” said Melchior, as he trudged on, shouting his words and not turning his head. “But what will you? See how much easier it is. It would take us hours longer to keep to the rocks. There is a crevasse here: walk lightly—just in my steps.”