They turned instantly to hasten from so dangerous a spot, but were arrested by another and much louder rumbling sound.
“Quick, fly, Monsieur!” exclaimed Le Croix, setting his young companion the example.
Truly there was cause for haste. A sub-glacial lake among the heights above had burst its icy barriers, and, down the same couloir from which the smaller avalanche had sprung, a very ocean of boulders, mud, ice, and débris came crashing and roaring with a noise like the loudest thunder, with this difference, that there was no intermission of the roar for full quarter of an hour; only, at frequent intervals, a series of pre-eminent peals were heard, when boulders, from six to ten feet in diameter, met with obstacles, and dashed them aside, or broke themselves into atoms.
Our hunters fled for their lives, and barely gained the shelter of a giant boulder, when the skirts of the hideous torrent roared past leaped over an ice-cliff, and was swallowed up by the insatiable crevasses of the glacier below. For several minutes after they had reached, and stood panting in, a position of safety, they listened to the thunderous roar of Alpine artillery, until it died slowly away—as if unwillingly—in the light pattering of pebbles.
Gratitude to the Almighty for deliverance from a great danger was the strongest feeling in the heart of the chamois-hunter. Profound astonishment and joy at having witnessed such an amazing sight, quickened the pulse of Lewis.
“That was a narrow escape, Le Croix?”
“It was. I never see such a sight without a shudder, because I lost a brother in such an avalanche. It was on the slopes of the Jungfrau. He was literally broken to fragments by it.”
Lewis expressed sympathy, and his feelings were somewhat solemnised by the graphic recital of the details of the sad incident with which the hunter entertained him, as they descended the mountain rapidly.
In order to escape an impending storm, which was evidently brewing in the clouds above, Lewis suggested that they should diverge from the route by which they had ascended, and attempt a short cut by a steeper part of the mountains.
Le Croix looked round and pondered. “I don’t like diverging into unknown parts when in a hurry, and with the day far spent,” he said. “One never knows when a sheer precipice will shut up the way in places like this.”