it tap-tapping
on the bottom of the scale.

Below there was a sleepy porter, who with the utmost gruffness produced
some lukewarm coffee, with stale, dry slices of over-night bread, and
flavoured the whole with an evil-smelling lamp.

"Shriekingly cold, Herr; yes, it is so in here!" he said in answer to my
complaints. "Yes--but, it is warm to what it will be up there outside."

The pack was donned. The double stockings, the fingerless woollen gloves
were put on, and the earflaps of the cap were drawn down. The door was
opened quietly, and the chill outer air met us like a wall.

"A good journey, my Herr!" said the porter, a mocking accent in his
voice--the rascal.

I strode from under the dark shadow of the hotel, wondering if Lucia was
asleep behind her curtains over the porch.

CHAPTER IX

THE PIZ LANGREV

Past the waterfall and over the bridge--our bridge--ran the path. As I
turned my face to the mountain, there was a strange constricted feeling
about one corner of my mouth, to which I put up a mittened hand. A small
icicle fell tinkling down. My feet were now beginning to get a little
warm, but I felt uncertain whether my ears were hot or cold. There was a
strange unattached feeling about them. Had I not been reading somewhere
of a mountaineer who had some such feeling? He put his hand to his ear
and broke off a piece as one breaks a bit of biscuit. A horrid thought,
but one which assuredly stimulates attention.

Then I took off one glove and rubbed the ear vigorously with the warm
palm of my hand. There was a tingling glow, as though some one were
striking lucifer matches all along the rim; soon there was no doubt that
the circulation was effectually restored. _En avant!_ Ears are useless
things at the best.

I kept my head down, climbing steadily. But with the tail of my eye I
could see that the hills had a sprinkling of snow--the legacy of the
Thal wind which last night brought the moisture up the valley. Only the
crags of the Piz Langrev were black above me, with a few white streaks
in the crevices where the snow lies all the year. The cliffs were too
steep for the snow to lie upon them, the season too far advanced for it
to remain on the lower slopes.

The moon was lying over on her back, and the stars tingled through the
frosty air. The lake lay black beneath on a grey world, plain as a blot
of ink on a boy's copybook.

Yet I had only been climbing among the rocks a very few moments when