The straw, to which they had so long and so fondly clung, was snatched from their grasp. Again were they drowning.
For nearly an hour sat they thus, moody and desponding. The purple-coloured tints, that began to play over the surface of the eternal snows above, admonished them that the sun was far down in the heavens, and that night was approaching.
Karl was the first to become conscious of this—the first to break silence.
“Oh, brothers!” said he, under the impress of their common misfortune including Ossaroo in the fraternal appellation. “Come away! It is useless to stay longer here. Let us go home!”
“Home!” repeated Caspar, with a melancholy smile. “Ah! Karl, I wish you had not spoken the word. So sweet at other times, it now rings in my ears like some unearthly echo. Home, indeed! Alas, dear brother! we shall ne’er go home.”
To this pathetic speech Karl made no reply. He could offer no word of hope or consolation; and therefore remained silent. He had already risen to his feet—the others following his example—and all three walked moodily away from the spot, taking the most direct route towards their rude dwelling, which now more than ever they had reason to regard as their home.
On reaching the hut they found still another cause of inquietude. Their stock of provisions, which had survived the destructive onset of the elephant, had been economised with great care. But as they had been too busy in making the ladders to waste time on any other species of industry, nothing had been added to the larder—neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. On the contrary, it had dwindled down, until upon that clay when they issued forth to try their ladders against the cliff, they had left behind them only a single piece of dried yâk-beef—about enough to have furnished them with a single meal.
Hungry after the day’s fruitless exertion, they were contemplating a supper upon it, and not without some degree of pleasant anticipation: for nature under all circumstances will assert her rights, and the cravings of appetite are not to be stifled even by the most anguished suffering of the spirit.
As they drew nearer to the hut, but more especially when they came in sight of it, and perceived its rude but hospitable doorway open to receive them—as from the chill atmosphere through which they were passing they beheld its sheltering roof of thatch, and thought of its snug, cosy interior—as, keenly experiencing the pangs both of cold and hunger, they beheld in fancy a bright faggot fire crackling upon the hearth, and heard the yâk-beef hissing and sputtering in the blaze, their spirits began to return to their natural condition, and if not actual joy, something that very much resembled cheerfulness might have been observed in the demeanour of all.
It is ever thus with the mind of man, and perhaps fortunate that it is so. The human soul finds its type in the sky—cloud and sunshine, sunshine and cloud.