A STEEP GRADIENT.
At one time the mass would slide without jolts or jars; at another, seized with a pitching and rolling motion like the deck of a vessel shaken by the billows, it would run along the edge of the abysses into which the fragments of the mountain fell, uproot the trees of centuries, and level with the precision of an enormous scythe all the inequalities of the eastern slope.
How long this indescribable scene lasted, no one could tell; in what abyss all were to be engulfed, no one was able to foresee. Whether they were all there alive, or whether one of them was lying at the bottom of a crevasse, no one could say. Stunned by the swiftness of the descent, chilled by the keenness of the cold, blinded by the whirlwinds of snow, they panted, exhausted and almost inanimate, and only clung to the rocks by the supreme instinct of preservation.
All at once a shock of unusual violence arrested their gliding vehicle. They were thrown forward and rolled upon the last declivities of the mountains. The plateau had stopped short.
For a few moments no one stirred. At last one rose, deafened by the shock, but yet firm. It was the major. He shook off the snow that blinded him, and looked around. His companions were not very far from one another. He counted them. All but one lay on the ground. The missing one was Robert Grant.