No more was said; but these words set Saxe thinking till it was bedtime, when Melchior startled him by saying quietly—
“Don’t laugh at me, herr. I do try to be firm, and to set aside all the old stories of demons, dragons and goblins in the mountains. I wish the herr would have a watch kept again, for I am afraid that this gletscher valley is bewitched.”
Saxe looked at him for a moment wonderingly, and then laughed.
“Don’t let Mr Dale hear you talk like that,” he said. “It will make him cross. He says there is no need to keep watch; and that it is so tiring.”
Saxe had forgotten the incident in the conversation which ensued; and after the discussion of the plans for the ensuing day, he went to his sleeping-place to think about the blue-ice grotto at the bottom of the glacier where the milky stream issued, and lie wondering how far up they would be able to explore it, and whether it would be possible to get up as far as the crevasse out of which they had rescued the guide.
“Wouldn’t be worth the trouble,” he said to himself, in the middle of a yawn. “Plenty of crystals, but the wrong sort—ice crystals—won’t keep.”
It only seemed to be the next minute that he was sitting up in the darkness listening and realising that he had been asleep. He had been dreaming, he was sure, but had not the least idea what about; and all he knew now was that he was hot and thirsty.
He rose and quietly unfastened the little canvas fold which served as a door, and went out to find the kettle and have a good draught of water; but it was so mawkishly warm, that he turned from it in disgust, and began to ascend higher to where the little fall came, down, with its pure, icily cold stream.
The night was glorious, and as he looked up he felt that he had never seen so many or such large stars before. So grandly was the arch of heaven bespangled, that he stopped to gaze upward for a few minutes, till, the sensation of thirst growing more acute, he went on, with the towering wall of rock to right and left, and the moist odour of the falling water saluting his nostrils, as he went close up to where one tiny thread of water fell bubbling into a rocky basin, edged with moss—the spot where water was obtained for regular use, its crystal purity tempting the thirsty to drink.
Saxe placed a hand on the rock on either side, bent down till his lips touched the surface, and then drank with avidity, every draught being delicious.