ndred feet above the
sea-level, and which, though it was eighty-five miles away, appeared to
be almost within rifle-shot. And still more was it a relief to turn the
eye in an opposite direction, and to allow it to rest upon the
glittering summit of Dhawalagiri, which, at a distance of no less than
_two hundred and forty miles_, gleamed faint and softly opalescent out
of the western haze. And, lastly, to the southward of them they beheld
the fertile province of Nepaul, watered by countless tributaries to the
mighty Ganges; and, beyond it again, the still more fertile province of
Oudh. The professor, totally forgetful of his exceedingly perilous
position, was enthusiastically expatiating, after his usual manner, upon
the marvellous extent and beauty of the prospect, and interrupting the
flow of his eloquence at short intervals to assure his companions that
a--to them--invisible object on the far horizon _must_ be the town of
Patna, when a terrific crackling crash just below them drew the eyes of
the party in that direction, just in time for them to see the supposed
projecting crag--in reality an enormous mass of ice--which supported the
snow-bank on which the _Flying Fish_ rested, break off and go thundering
down into the unfathomable depths below. The spectators clung to each
other in helpless nerveless terror at so appalling a spectacle as the
falling of this mass, weighing probably millions of tons; but the full
significance and import of the catastrophe did not present itself to
their dazed and bewildered senses until they beheld the _Flying Fish_,
after following the falling mass for a couple of hundred feet, recover
herself and float jauntily in the air, _adrift_, at a distance of fully
two thousand feet from the mountain side. Then, indeed, the full horror
of their position began to slowly dawn upon them, and they looked at
each other with eyes in which could be read a despair too deep and too
complete to need or find expression in words. Their long search for a
landing-place that morning had unconsciously impressed upon them a fact
which now--and not till now--took intelligible shape within their
brains, and it was this: they could descend the mountain as far as the
spot at which they had left the _Flying Fish, but no further_; beyond
that point further descent, with the means at their disposal, was
impossible. Which meant, in plain language and few words, that, sooner
or later, they would try to get down, an