Actually we had passed over near two-thirds of the
ice-bed, when a touch on my arm stayed me, and _ma mie_ looked into my
eyes, very comical and insolent.

"'Little cabbage,' she said; 'will you not put your new knowledge to
account?'

"'But how, my soul?'

"She laughed and pressed my arm to her side. Her heart fluttered like a
nestling after its first flight.

"'To rest on the little prowess of a small adventure! No, no! Shall he
who has learnt to swim be always content to bathe in shallow water?'

"I was speechless as I gazed on her.

"'Behold, then!' she cried. 'We have opposed ourselves to this problem of
the ice, and we have mastered it. See how it rears itself to the
inaccessible peaks, the which to reach the poor innocents expend
themselves over rocks and drifts. But why should one not climb the
mountain by way of the glacier?'

"'Fidele!' I gasped.

"'Ah!' she exclaimed, nodding her head; 'but poor men! They are mules.
They spill their blood on the scaling ladders when the town gate is
open.'

"Again I cried 'Fidele!'

"'But, yes,' she said, 'it needs a woman to see. It is but two o'clock.
Let us ascend the glacier, like a staircase; and presently we shall stand
upon the summit of the mountain. Those last little peaks above the ice
can be of no importance.'

"I was touched, astounded by the sublimity of her idea. Had no one, then,
ever thought of this before?

"We began the ascent.

"I swear we must have toiled upwards half a mile, when the catastrophe
took place.

"It was raining then--a dense small mist; and the ice was as if it
had been greased. We were proceeding with infinite care, arm in arm,
tucked close together. A little doubt, I think, was beginning to oppress
us. We could move only with much caution and difficulty; and there were
noises--sounds like the clapping of great hands in those rocky attics
above us. Then there would come a slamming report, as if the window of
the unknown had been burst open by demons; and the moans of the lost
would issue, surging down upon the world.

"These thunders, as we were afterwards told, are caused by the splitting
of the ice when there comes a fall in the barometer. Then the glacier
will yawn like a sliced junket.

"My faith! what a simile! But again the point of view, my friend.

"All in a moment I heard a little cluck. I looked down. Alas! the fine
spirit was obscured. Fidele was weeping.

"'_Chut! chut!_' I exclaimed in consternation. 'We