rted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful shadows and
lurid lights played and floated about and through the pale blue
pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the traveler, while his
ears grew dull and his head giddy with the constant gush and roar of
the concealed waters. These painful circumstances increased upon him
as he advanced; the ice crashed and yawned into fresh chasms at his
feet, tottering spires nodded around him and fell thundering across his
path; and though he had repeatedly faced these dangers on the most
terrific glaciers and in the wildest weather, it was with a new and
oppressive feeling of panic terror that he leaped the last chasm and
flung himself, exhausted and shuddering, on the firm turf of the
mountain.

He had been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became a
perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshing
himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice.
This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited his
hardy frame, and with the indomitable spirit of avarice he resumed his
laborious journey.

His way now lay straight up a ridge of bare red rocks, without a blade
of grass to ease the foot or a projecting angle to afford an inch of
shade from the south sun. It was past noon and the rays beat intensely
upon the steep path, while the whole atmosphere was motionless and
penetrated with heat. Intense thirst was soon added to the bodily
fatigue with which Hans was now afflicted; glance after glance he cast
on the flask of water which hung at his belt. "Three drops are enough,"
at last thought he; "I may, at least, cool my lips with it."

He opened the flask and was raising it to his lips, when his eye fell
on an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved. It was
a small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst. Its
tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and a
swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat. Its eye
moved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank,
spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not know
how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly come
across the blue sky.

The path became steeper and more rugged every moment, and the high hill
air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever.
The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; they
wer