some places resembled, and had crumbled down as soon as it received a
shock.

Carrying his two pieces back, Saxe set them down at the edge of the
crevasse, about a dozen yards from where Melchior had fallen; and, then
going back along the side to that spot, he shouted again--a dismal,
depressing cry, which made his spirits lower than before; and at last,
after waiting some time for a reply, knowing all the while that it would
not come, he crept back to where he had laid the two pieces of ice, and
stood looking down at them, hesitating as to whether he should carry out
his plan.

"I must be doing something," he cried piteously. "If I stand still in
the snow, thinking, I shall go mad. It will be hours before Mr Dale
gets back, and it is so dreadful to do nothing but think--think--think."

He gazed about him, to see a peak here and a peak there, standing up
dazzling in its beauty, as it seemed to peer over the edge of the
valley; but the glory had departed, and the wondrous river of ice, with
its frozen waves and tumbling waters and solid foam, all looked cold and
terrible and forbidding.

"I must do something," said Saxe at last, as if answering some one who
had told him it would be dangerous to throw pieces of ice into the
crevasse. "It is so far away from where he fell that it cannot hurt
him. It will not go near him, and I want to know how far down he has
fallen."

He laid down his ice-axe, picked up one of the lumps, balanced it for a
moment or two, and then pitched it into the narrow chasm, to go down on
his hands and knees the next instant and peer forward and listen.

He was so quick that he saw the white block falling, and as it went
lower it turned first of a delicate pale blue, then deeper in colour,
and deeper still, and then grew suddenly dark purple and disappeared,
while, as Saxe strained eyes and ears, there came directly after a heavy
crash, which echoed with a curious metallic rumble far below.

"Not so very deep," cried Saxe, as he prepared to throw down the other
piece; and, moving a few yards farther along towards the centre of the
glacier, he had poised the lump of ice in his hands, when there came a
peculiar hissing, whishing sound from far below and he shrank back
wondering, till it came to him by degrees that the piece he had thrown
down must have struck upon some ledge, shattered to fragments, and that
these pieces had gone on falling, till the hissing noise he had heard
was caused b