y their disappearing into water at some awful depth below.

Saxe stood there with the shrinking sensation increasing, and it was
some time before he could rouse himself sufficiently to carry out his
first intention and throw the second piece of ice into the gulf. As it
fell his heart beat heavily, and he once more dropped upon his hands and
knees to follow its downward course and watch the comparatively slow and
beautiful changes through which it passed before it disappeared in the
purply-black darkness, while he listened for the crash as it broke upon
the ledge preparatory to waiting in silence for the fall of the
fragments lower down.

But there was no crash--no hissing, spattering of small fragments
dropping into water--nothing but the terrible silence, which seemed as
if it would never end; and at last a heavy dull splash, the hissing of
water, and a curious lapping sound repeated by the smooth water, till
all died away, and there was silence once again. "Awful!" muttered
Saxe, as he wiped his damp brow. "Poor Melchior!--no wonder he didn't
answer to my cries."

A feeling of weary despondency came over the boy now, and he shrank away
from the edge and threw himself down on the snow.

For it was hopeless, he knew. And when Mr Dale returned he should have
to tell him of his terrible discovery; when he, too, would own that no
human being could fall down that terrible gulf and live.

The snow was cold beneath him, and the sun poured down upon his back
with blistering power, but the boy felt nothing save the despairing
agony of mind; and as he lay there one desire, one wish came to his
mind, and that was full of longing for forgetfulness--the power to put
all this terrible trouble behind him--a miserable feeling of cowardice:
in short, of desire to evade his share of the cares of life, which come
to all: for he had yet to learn what is the whole duty of a man.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"YOU THINK HE IS DEAD?"

Saxe never knew how long it was before he was roused from his miserable
lethargic state by a faint hail, which acted upon him like magic, making
him spring to his feet and answer before going back to the edge of the
crevasse, and uttering a cry that was doleful in the extreme.

Then he shaded his eyes and gazed downward beneath the labyrinth of ice
blocks among which the smoother ice which had formed their path wound
its way; but for a long time he could see nothing of Dale, and he was
beginning to as