westruck voice. "It
sounds like thunder; but it is regular and unbroken; and, my lord, surely
the earth quakes under our feet!"

Louder and louder grew the roar.

"Throw yourselves down against the wall of rock," Cuthbert shouted,
himself setting the example.

A moment afterwards, from above, a mighty mass of rock and snow poured
over like a cascade, with a roar and sound which nigh stunned them. For
minutes--it seemed for hours to them--the deluge of snow and rock
continued. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ceased, and a silence as
of death reigned over the place.

"Arise," Cuthbert said; "the danger, methinks, is past. It was what men
call an avalanche--a torrent of snow slipping down from the higher peaks.
We have had a narrow escape indeed."

By this time the knight whom they had rescued was able to speak, and
raising his visor, he returned his deepest thanks to those who had come
so opportunely to his aid.

"I was well nigh exhausted," he said, "and it was only my armour which
saved me from being torn to pieces. A score of them had hold of me; but,
fortunately, my mail was of Milan proof, and even the jaws and teeth of
these enormous beasts were unable to pierce it."

"The refuge is near at hand," Cuthbert said. "It is but a few yards
round yonder point. It is well that we heard your voice. I fear that your
horse has fallen a victim."

Assisting the knight, who, in spite of his armour, was sorely bruised
and exhausted, they made their way back to the refuge. Cnut and the
archers were all bleeding freely from various wounds inflicted upon them
in the struggle, breathless and exhausted from their exertions, and
thoroughly awe-struck by the tremendous phenomenon of which they had
been witnesses, and which they had only escaped from their good fortune
in happening to be in a place so formed that the force of the avalanche
had swept over their heads The whole of the road, with the exception of
a narrow piece four feet in width, had been carried away. Looking
upwards, they saw that the forest had been swept clear, not a tree
remaining in a wide track as far as they could see up the hill. The
great bowlders which had strewn the hill-side, and many of which were as
large as houses, had been swept away like straws before the rush of
snow, and for a moment they feared that the refuge had also been
carried away. Turning the corner, however, they saw to their delight
that the limits of the avalanche had not exte