before, showing the way; and that which will fall--will
fall."

"Good. That is a bargain. Fulfil it, and thy reward shall be worth
the winning. Let yaks be ordered from the nearest _aul_; and at
daylight we set out."

The man from Yasin salaamed and departed; but at the tent door Zyarulla
paused, a glitter of triumph in his eyes.

"Captain Sahib,--was it well done?"

"Excellently done," Lenox answered, smiling. "Thou art worth thy
weight in tobacco of the first quality!"

And the Pathan, knowing that to his master the value of tobacco was
above all the rupees ever minted, went out to patronise lesser mortals,
and impress them with the fact that he was not as other men, since he
had rendered signal service to "the first-best Sahib in all India,
whose eyes pierce the earth, and whose feet tread upon the necks of
mountains even as those of common Sahibs scatter the dust of cities!"

That night, ominous pains in his limbs and a sensation as of cold water
down his spine drove Lenox to open his second and last bottle of
brandy. Stimulated by the kindly spirit, he wrestled with a fowl
tougher than india-rubber, and slept as a doomed man might sleep on the
night of his reprieve.

But he woke to hear the tread of his sentry muffled by new-fallen snow;
and hope died in him at the sound. Outside, the world was white with
it; the whole air thick with it; yet his men were striking camp and
loading up, confident in the white man's reputation for achieving the
impossible. Only the little guide demurred, trembling at his own
audacity.

"Hazur, look whether the thing can be done. I said--if no snow fell."

"And _I_ say, if it fall or no, we cross to-day," Lenox answered, with
more of assurance than he felt. "Bid the yaks go forward to prepare a
way for our coming."

The great shaggy beasts went forward accordingly, head downward,
ploughing a way through the snow, to make marching easier and disclose
hidden pitfalls or crevasses; and by the time Lenox had despatched a
travesty of a breakfast, a pallid light in the east hinted that the
storm might be local after all. Wet and draggled as they were, the
order was given to load up and start; and even as they crossed the
torrent to the foot of the glacier, earth and sky leaped suddenly into
light; broken streaks of radiance danced and sparkled on the river, and
the sun swept the shadows from hill and valley, converting their
deathlike shroud into a glittering garment, s