, he stopped, and after exchanging' some words in
_patois_ with his comrades, declared that we must detach
ourselves from M. N----'s party.

"We are responsible for you," he added, "but we cannot be
responsible for others; and if they slip, they will drag us after
them."

Saying this, he got loose from the rope. We were very unwilling
to take this step; but our guides were inflexible.

We then proposed to send two of them to help M. N----'s guides.
They eagerly consented; but having no rope they could not put
this plan into execution.

We then began this terrible descent. Only one of us moved at a
time, and when each took a step the others buttressed themselves
ready to sustain the shock if he slipped. The foremost guide,
Edward Ravanel, had the most perilous task; it was for him to
make the steps over again, now more or less worn away by the
ascending caravan.

We progressed slowly, taking the most careful precautions. Our
route led us in a right line to one of the crevasses which opened
at the base of the escarpment. When we were going up we could not
look at this crevasse, but in descending we were fascinated by
its green and yawning sides. All the blocks of ice detached by
our passage went the same way, and after two or three bounds,
ingulfed themselves in the crevasse, as in the jaws of the
minotaur, only the jaws of the minotaur closed after each morsel,
while the unsatiated crevasse yawned perpetually, and seemed to
await, before closing, a larger mouthful. It was for us to take
care that we should not be this mouthful, and all our efforts
were made for this end. In order to withdraw ourselves from this
fascination, this moral giddiness, if I may so express myself, we
tried to joke about the dangerous position in which we found
ourselves, and which even a chamois would not have envied us. We
even got so far as to hum one of Offenbach's couplets; but I must
confess that our jokes were feeble, and that we did not sing the
airs correctly.

I even thought I discovered Levesque obstinately setting the
words of "Barbe-Bleue" to one of the airs in "Il Trovatore,"
which rather indicated some grave preoccupation of the mind. In
short, in order to keep up our spirits, we did as do those brave
cowards who sing in the dark to forget their fright.

We remained thus, suspended between life and death, for an hour,
which seemed an eternity; at last we reached the bottom of this
terrible escarpment. We there found M.