of ice, but only to disappear again. Then Saxe saw his head
and shoulders lower down, and after an interval the top of his cap, and
he was gone.

To keep from dwelling upon the horror of his position, alone there in
that icy solitude, Saxe lay down again, with his face over the chasm,
and hailed and shouted with all his might. But still there was no
reply, and he rose up from the deep snow once more, and tried to catch
sight of Dale; but he had gone. And now, in spite of his efforts to be
strong and keep his head cool, the horror began to close him in like a
mist. Melchior had fallen down that crevasse, and was killed. Dale had
gone down to their camp to fetch the rope, but he was alone. He had no
guide, and he might lose his way, or meet with an accident too, and fall
as Melchior had fallen. Even if he only had a slip, it would be
terrible, for he might lie somewhere helpless, and never be found.

In imagination, as he stood here, Saxe saw himself waiting for hours,
perhaps for days, and no help coming. And as to returning, it seemed
impossible to find his way farther than their camp; for below the
glacier Melchior had led them through a perfect labyrinth of narrow
chasms, which he had felt at the time it would be impossible to thread
alone.

It required a powerful mental drag to tear his thoughts away from these
wild wanderings to the present; and, determining to forget self, he
tried hard to concentrate his mind, not upon his own position, but upon
that of the poor fellow who lay somewhere below.

He lay down once more in the snow, shrinkingly, for in spite of his
efforts, the thought would come, "Suppose a great piece of the side
should give way beneath me, and carry me down to a similar fate to
Melchior's." These fancies made him move carefully in his efforts to
peer down farther than before, so as to force his eyes to pierce the
gloom and make out where Melchior lay.

But it was all in vain. He could see a long way, and sometimes it
almost seemed as if he saw farther than at others; but lower down there
was always that purply transparent blackness into which his eyesight
plunged, but could not quite plumb.

"I wonder how deep it is?" said Saxe aloud, after shouting till he grew
hoarse, and speaking out now for the sake of hearing a voice in that
awful silence. "I wonder how deep it is?" he said again, feeling
startled at the peculiar whisper which had followed his words. "It must
go right down