enly and then descend more sharply,
for the continuation was out of sight.

"No, there are no crevasses," replied Melchior; "but a slip here would
have been bad."

"This is a cornice, then, Melchior?" said Dale.

"Yes, herr, and if you two will hold me, I will step out a little way
and break a hole for you to see."

In obedience to his instructions, Saxe and Dale stepped back to the full
extent of the cord, and then eased it out as the guide stepped forward,
till he suddenly held up his hand.

"Now," he said, "let me bear out against the rope;" and, raising the
ice-axe in both hands, he began to use it vigorously, cutting hard at
the frozen snow, till there was a sharp crack, and he threw himself back
while a huge piece of the cornice broke away and dropped down out of
sight. Then all waited breathlessly till a faint hissing sound told
that it had touched rock or ground somewhere below, but how far down
Saxe did not realise, till Melchior made way for him to creep to the
extreme edge and look.

"We have the rope tightly," said Dale, "so you need not hesitate."

But the boy did hesitate, and, after peering over, he shrank back
appalled.

Melchior smiled.

"Well, herr," he said, "what do you think of the glissade, if you had
taken one?"

"It's horrible," said Saxe, in a subdued tone; and he turned and looked
down again where the guide had broken away the cornice, which curved out
over a tremendous precipice, and saw that had he followed his
inclination and slid down the snow slope, he would have gone over the
cornice, and then plunged headlong, to fall nearly sheer down what
seemed to be three or four thousand feet, to where a glacier wound along
past the foot of the precipice.

Just then Dale joined him.

"Ah!" he said; "this is grand. Look at the course of that river till it
disappears in the haze. You can count several villages, too, on the
mountain slope and plain."

But Saxe had no eye for river or villages. The object that took his
attention was the river of ice below, upon which whoever dropped from
where he stood must fall; and as Dale spoke to him again, he turned away
with quite a start and a shudder.

"Hallo!" cried Dale; "that will not do. Too imaginative, Saxe. There's
plenty all round to encounter, without your calling up the imaginary.
Well, Melchior, which way next?"

"Up above that snow slope, herr, and round the shoulder of the mountain
that you can see yonder."

"Yes; but th