uld not
have felt if unattached. Le Croix himself descended without this moral
support, but, being as sure-footed as a chamois, it mattered little.

Pretty well exhausted by their exertions, they now found themselves at
the summit of a precipice so perpendicular and unbroken, that a single
glance sufficed to convince them of the utter impossibility of further
descent in that quarter. The ledge on which they stood was not more
than three feet broad. Below them the glacier appeared in the fading
light to be as far off as ever. Above, the cliffs frowned like
inaccessible battlements. They were indeed like flies clinging to a
wall, and, to add to their difficulties, the storm which had threatened
now began in earnest.

A cloud as black as pitch hung in front of them. Suddenly, from its
heart, there gushed a blinding flash of lightning, followed, almost
without interval, by a crash of thunder. The echoes took up the sounds,
hurling them back and forward among the cliffs as if cyclopean mountain
spirits were playing tennis with boulders. Rain also descended in
torrents, and for some time the whole scene became as dark as if
overspread with the wing of night.

Crouching under a slight projection of rock, the explorers remained
until the first fury of the squall was over. Fortunately, it was as
short-lived as violent, but its effects were disagreeable, for cataracts
now poured on them as they hurried along the top of the precipice vainly
looking for a way of escape. At last, on coming to one of those checks
which had so often met them that day, Le Croix turned and said--

"There is no help for it, Monsieur, we must spend the night here."

"Here!" exclaimed Lewis, glancing at the cliffs above and the gulf
below.

"It is not a pleasant resting-place," replied the hunter, with a sad
smile, "but we cannot go on. It will be quite dark in half an hour,
when an effort to advance would insure our destruction. The little
light that remains must be spent in seeking out a place to lie on."

The two men, who were thrown thus together in such perilous
circumstances, were possessed of more than average courage, yet it would
be false to say that fear found no place in their breasts. On the
contrary, each confessed to the other the following day that his heart
had sunk within him as he thought of the tremendous cliffs against which
they were stuck, with descent and ascent equally impossible, a narrow
ledge on the precipice