light followed by the
darkest of clouds!

Ten minutes had scarce elapsed. They had freed Fritz from his yak-skin
envelope, and had started down the glacier, impatient to get out of that
gloomy defile. Scarce five hundred steps had they taken, when a sight
came under their eyes that caused them suddenly to hall, and turn to
each other with blanched cheeks and looks of dread import. Not one of
them spoke a word, but all stood pointing significantly down the ravine.
Words were not needed. The thing spoke for itself.

Another crevasse, far wider than the one they had just crossed, yawned
before them! It stretched from side to side of the icy mass; like the
former, impinging on either cliff. It was full two hundred feet in
width, and how deep. Ugh! they dared hardly look into its awful chasm!
It was clearly impassable. Even the dog appeared to be aware of this;
for he had stopped upon its edge, and stood in an attitude of fear, now
and then uttering a melancholy howl!

Yes, it was impassable. A glance was sufficient to tell that; but they
were not satisfied with a glance. They stood upon its brink, and
regarded it for a long while, and with many a wistful gaze; then, with
slow steps and heavy hearts, they turned mechanically away.

I shall not repeat their mournful conversation. I shall not detail the
incidents of their backward journey to the valley. I need not describe
the recrossing of the crevasse--the different feelings with which they
now accomplished this perilous feat. All these may be easily imagined.

It was near night when, wearied in body and limb--downcast in mien and
sick at heart--they reached the hut, and flung themselves despairingly
upon the floor.

"My God! my God!" exclaimed Karl, in the agony of his soul, "how long is
this hovel to be our home?"

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.

NEW HOPES.

That night was passed without much sleep. Painful reflections filled
the minds of all and kept them awake--the thoughts that follow
disappointed hopes. When they did sleep it was more painful than
waking. Their dreams were fearful. They dreamt of yawning gulfs and
steep precipices--of being suspended in the air, and every moment about
to fall into vast depths where they would be crushed to atoms. Their
dreams, that were only distorted pictures of the day's experience, had
all the vividness of reality, and far more vivid in their horror. Often
when one or other of them was awakened by the approach