idnight
from the Grands Mulets, and three or four of Monsieur Janssen's porters,
had already sought refuge in the hut. Icicles hung about my face, and my
clothes were as stiff as chain armor. There was no fire in the little
hut and no means of making any. My watch, when I was able to get it out
of my pocket, showed the time to be a quarter to nine A.M.

Pulling off our shoes and putting on dry stockings as quickly as
possible, we imitated the example of the man who had let us in, and who
no sooner closed the door than he tumbled back into his bunk and buried
himself in the rough woollen blankets which the Alpine Club has provided
for the use of those who may need them.

In about an hour the storm lightened, and the Englishman and the porters
started back to the Grands Mulets. I consulted Couttet about making a
dash for the summit; but he thought it would be better to wait awhile,
and better still to follow the others down the mountain. To this last
proposition I decidedly objected, although Couttet was right, as it
turned out; for in another hour the storm, which had not entirely ceased
at any time, whipped itself into renewed fury, and before noon the wind
was howling and shrieking with demoniac energy, and flinging gritty snow
and ice in blinding clouds against the hut, which, situated on a ridge,
was completely exposed. Fortunately it is strongly built and solidly
anchored. While I entertained no reasonable doubt of its security, yet
when a blast of extraordinary fierceness made it tremble, as if it were
holding itself with desperate grip upon the rocks, I could not help
picturing it, in imagination, taking flight at last, and sailing high
over the mountains in the wild embrace of the tempest.

Time moved with a dreadfully slow pace. The only way to keep warm was to
remain in the bunk under a pile of blankets. Once, in my impatience, I
got out and painfully hauled on my shoes, which were as cold as ice, and
as hard almost; but my feet were blistered through lack of previous
exercise, and after hobbling and shivering for a few minutes on the
narrow floor, which was partly covered with a constantly accumulating
deposit of snow, as fine and dry as flour and as frigid as though it had
come straight from the Arctic Circle, I hurried back under the blankets.
The invading snow penetrated through cracks that one could hardly see,
around the door and the little square window.

At last noon came, and we ate our remaining mo