They gained it and lunged across it to the shelving slope that reached upward to the narrow, perilous ridge whence they had come.
As they proceeded, the pigmy horde following with incredible swiftness, Stoddard wheeled and fired time and again—and now his shots were answered by the reports of rifles.
"Krassnov and his Cossacks!" he muttered. "Well, we'll give them our heels, unless they hit us."
"And Russians are notoriously bad shots, I understand," panted the professor.
At any rate, they reached the slope and struggled upward toward the ridge, putting themselves presently out of range behind the jagged rocks that loomed on every side.
But just as they were congratulating themselves on their escape, came a dull, reverberating explosion—and as they clung to their insecure footholds, a volcano of snow and ice rose ahead. Thousands of tons of debris avalanched into the chasm below.
tunned, deafened, they looked around.
Down in that pocket where the Thunderbolt had so recently gleamed was one vast chaos, and above, where that razor-back ridge had led across the intervening chasms to safety, was a dazzling void.