hat it resulted in this silent, splendid efflorescence of
light, or whether some other cause of unfathomable nature may be
assigned as reason for the phenomenon--however that be: gradually the
light grew weaker and weaker, first the sheaves died down, until by
unnoticeable degrees it grew ever less and there was nothing in the
heavens but the thousands upon thousands of simple stars.

The children never exchanged a word, but remained sitting and gazed
open-eyed into the heavens.

Nothing particular happened afterward. The stars gleamed and shone and
twinkled, only an occasional shooting star traversed them.

At last, after the stars had shone alone for a long time, and nothing
had been seen of the moon, something else happened. The sky began to
grow brighter, slowly but recognizably brighter; its color became
visible, the faintest stars disappeared and the others were not
clustered so densely any longer. Finally, also the bigger stars faded
away, and the snow on the heights became more distinct. Now, one region
of the heavens grew yellow and a strip of cloud floating in it was
inflamed to a glowing line. All things became clearly visible and the
remote snow-hills assumed sharp outlines.

"Sanna, day is breaking," said the boy.

"Yes, Conrad," answered the girl.

"After it grows just a bit brighter we shall go out of the cave and run
down from the mountain."

It grew brighter, no star was visible any longer, and all things stood
out clear in the dawn.

"Well, then, let us go," said the boy.

"Yes, let us go," answered Sanna.

The children arose and tried their limbs which only now felt their
tiredness. Although they had not slept, the morning had reinvigorated
them. The boy slung the calfskin bag around his shoulder and fastened
Sanna's fur-jacket about her. Then he led her out of the cave.

As they had believed it would be an easy matter to run down from the
mountain they had not thought of eating and had not searched the bag, to
see whether it contained any wheat-bread or other eatables.

The sky being clear, Conrad had wanted to look down from the mountain
into the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend
to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any
mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious
country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful
rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen