om!"

"Good old Magny!" responded Joe; "what a day we're having!"

Presently they condescended to look about them. They were on a sharp
ridge, one side of which sloped down into the valley from which they had
ascended, the other looked out on an uninterrupted prospect of cloud and
mist.

"This isn't what's-his-name at all," said Joe. "There's a tuck shop on
the top of it--there's none here."

"That chap was right," said Magnus. "That must be Snowdon over there--
we've missed him."

"Horrid bore," said Joe, who, however, regretted the mountain less than
the tuck shop.

The afternoon was changing. The clouds were beginning to sweep up from
the other side and begriming the sky which had been so ruthlessly clear
all the morning.

All of a sudden the mist below them parted, and disclosed through a
frame of cloud a great cauldron of rock yawning at their feet, at the
bottom of which--as it seemed, miles below--lay a black lake. It was a
scene Dante could have described better than I.

"If we could get down there we could have a tub," said Magnus.

"It's snug enough up here," replied the poet; "don't you think so?"
Magnus admitted it was snug, and did not press his motion. For, though
he scorned to say so, he was fagged, and felt he could do with a half-
hour's lounge before undertaking a new venture.

So the reconciled friends took their siesta on the top of the mysterious
mountain, and, in doing so, oddly enough fell asleep.

Sub-Chapter II.

THE IMMORTALS.

When they woke, the sun was still shining; but it had got round to the
side of them which, when they dropped off, had been wrapped in cloud,
while the mist had taken possession of the valley and hillside by which
they had ascended.

The transformation scene was so complete that had they not seen Joe's
paper on the ground beside them, and recognised the bank of heather
against which they reclined, they would have found it difficult to say
exactly where they were.

To all appearances they were at the end of the world. The great
cauldron gaped below them, apparently perpendicular on every side,
enclosing in its depths the black lake, on whose still surface the rays
of the sun gleamed weirdly and gloomily.

Not a sound was to be heard except a distant sullen rumble, which might
have been thunder, or earthquake, or the six-o'clock train going back to
Llandudno. Above them, as the clouds drifted past, they could see, as
they lay on their backs, oc