the frozen form. So, with hushed
steps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of ice, and then,
departing, stood on the rocky platform beside the river springs. All hushed
as we had been, the very striking of the air with our persons had sufficed
to disturb the repose of this thawless region; and we had hardly left the
cavern, before vast blocks of ice, detaching themselves from the roof,
fell, and covered the human image we had deposited within. We had chosen a
fair moonlight night, but our journey thither had been long, and the
crescent sank behind the western heights by the time we had accomplished
our purpose. The snowy mountains and blue glaciers shone in their own
light. The rugged and abrupt ravine, which formed one side of Mont Anvert,
was opposite to us, the glacier at our side; at our feet Arveiron, white
and foaming, dashed over the pointed rocks that jutted into it, and, with
whirring spray and ceaseless roar, disturbed the stilly night. Yellow
lightnings played around the vast dome of Mont Blanc, silent as the
snow-clad rock they illuminated; all was bare, wild, and sublime, while the
singing of the pines in melodious murmurings added a gentle interest to the
rough magnificence. Now the riving and fall of icy rocks clave the air; now
the thunder of the avalanche burst on our ears. In countries whose features
are of less magnitude, nature betrays her living powers in the foliage of
the trees, in the growth of herbage, in the soft purling of meandering
streams; here, endowed with giant attributes, the torrent, the
thunder-storm, and the flow of massive waters, display her activity. Such
the church-yard, such the requiem, such the eternal congregation, that
waited on our companion's funeral!

Nor was it the human form alone which we had placed in this eternal
sepulchre, whose obsequies we now celebrated. With this last victim Plague
vanished from the earth. Death had never wanted weapons wherewith to
destroy life, and we, few and weak as we had become, were still exposed to
every other shaft with which his full quiver teemed. But pestilence was
absent from among them. For seven years it had had full sway upon earth;
she had trod every nook of our spacious globe; she had mingled with the
atmosphere, which as a cloak enwraps all our fellow-creatures--the
inhabitants of native Europe--the luxurious Asiatic--the swarthy
African and free American had been vanquished and destroyed by her. Her
barbarous tyranny