days."

"Besides," said Power, "unless we move on, at all hazards, night will be
on us. A December night on Appenfell, without food or extra coverings,
and the chance of being kept indefinitely longer--" the sentence ended
in a shudder.

"Yes; I don't know what we should look like in the morning," said
Kenrick. "Let's move on, at all events; better that than the chance of
being frozen and starved to death."

They moved on again a little way through the clouds with uncertain and
hesitating steps, when suddenly Walter cried out in an agitated voice,
"Stop! God only knows where we are. I feel by a kind of instinct that
we're somewhere near the rift. I don't know what else should make me
tremble all over as I am doing; I seem to _hear_ the rift somehow. For
God's sake stop. Just let's sit down a minute till I try something."

"But's it's now nearly four o'clock," said Kenrick in a querulous tone,
as he halted and pulled out his watch, holding it close to his face to
make out the time. "An hour more and all daylight will be gone, and
with it all chance of being saved. Surely, we'd better press on.
That's _uncertain_ danger, but to stop is certain--"

"Certain death," whispered Power.

"Just listen then, one second," said Walter, and, disembedding a huge
piece of stone, he rolled it with all his force to their right,
listening with senses acutely sharpened by danger and excitement. The
stone bounded once, then they heard in their ears a rush, a shuffling of
loose and sliding earth, the whirring sound of a heavy falling body, and
then for several seconds a succession of distant crashes, startling with
fright the rebounding mountain echoes, as the bit of rock whirled over
the rift and was shattered into fragments by being dashed against the
sides of the precipice.

"Good God!" cried Walter, clutching both the boys and dragging them
hurriedly backwards, "we are standing at this moment on the very verge
of the chasm. It won't do to go on; every step may be death."

A pause of almost unspeakable horror followed his words; after the fall
of the rock had revealed to them how frightful was the peril which they
had escaped, all three of them for a moment felt paralysed in every
limb, and after looking close into each other's faces, blanched white by
a deadly fear, Kenrick and Power sat down in an agony of despair.

"Don't give way, you fellows," said Walter, to whom they both seemed to
look for help; "our only cha