d never have awakened from that spell-bound silence.

I sat up with difficulty, and by beating and rubbing them, slowly
regained the use of my lower limbs. I roused the Rongba, rubbed him, and
shook him till he was able to move. We began our descent.

No doubt the satisfaction of going up high mountains is very great; but
can it be compared to that of coming down?

Descending was dangerous but not wearisome. The incline being extremely
steep, we took gigantic strides on the snow, and when we came to patches
of _debris_, we slid ten or fifteen feet each step amidst a deafening
roar from the huge mass of loose stones set in motion by our descent.

[Illustration: "I ROUSED THE RONGBA"]

"Hark!" I said to the Rongba, "what is that?"

We waited till all was silence, and with hands up to our ears listened
attentively. It was still snowing.

"_Ao, ao, ao! Jaldi ao! Tumka hatte?_ Come, come, come quickly! Where are
you?" cried a faint distressed voice from far down below.

We quickened our pace; having hardly any control over our legs, our
descent was precipitous. The snow-fall ceased and we became enveloped in
a thick mist which pierced into our very bones.

Guided by the anxious cries of the doctor, whose voice we recognised, we
continued our breakneck journey downward. The cries got more and more
distinct, and at last, to my great joy, we came face to face with Wilson,
who, thank Heaven, was alive but almost helpless, as he said his legs
were still like lead, and it was all he could do to move them.

Owing to his anxiety about us, he had been shouting for a long time, and
getting no answer, he became very uneasy, all the more so as he found he
could in no way come to our help. He had quite given us up for lost.

We looked for and found Kachi. He had slept like a top, curled up in his
warm blanket and my overcoat, and was now quite refreshed, so all united
again, we continued our race downwards, exchanging our experiences and
sensations. We had no very serious mishaps, and life and strength
gradually came back to us again when we descended to lower elevations.
The ascent from the glacier at the bottom of the mountain to the summit
occupied four and a half hours; the precipitous descent, without counting
stoppages, only the ninth part of that time, the distance covered being
about one mile and three quarters.

Over the same trying stony valley we reached camp during the early hours
of the morning. The distance from