IT was only that daring and indomitable spirit of adventure which every true-born healthy Briton possesses that compelled Tom to climb any further into cloud-land to-day.
Tootu and his companions were left behind at the cave, our hero going up alone with Samaro. He meant to reach the snow-line, and he did; and had the satisfaction of walking a mile or two over a region of glaciers unsurpassed anywhere else in the world.
Apart from the pleasure he felt in having gained his desires, and standing where no human foot had probably ever trodden before, there was little comfort at this sublime altitude. A high cutting wind was blowing, and the cold was intense and piercing. Poor Samaro looked blue and benumbed; and albeit he had donned those wonderful nether garments of his, he was a very pitiable spectacle indeed.
At last he stopped, and pointing to a cloud that seemed fast approaching—
“Has my young chief,” he said, “made his will? If we have to die, Samaro would prefer to be where the birds sing.”
So enchanted had Tom been with the desolalation and sublimity of the scene everywhere beneath, above, and around him, that he took no heed of anything else, and had hardly felt the cold.
But his eyes now followed the direction of Samaro’s finger, and to his surprise and alarm he noticed that the last shoulder of the mighty mountain was already hidden with a darkling cloud. It was as if this monarch of the Andes were himself feeling the effects of the bitter wind and drawing his mantle close around him.
“Come, sir, come; there is not a moment to lose.”
Tom looked now towards the point from which they had entered the plateau; it appeared very far away indeed.
“We can run,” he said.