ad crossed the Alps three times before in his life, and well
remembered the extraordinary effect they had had on him, especially as
he had once seen them from a great altitude upon a clear day--an
eternal, immeasurable sea of white ice, broken by hummocks and wrinkles
that from below were soaring peaks named and reverenced; and, beyond,
the spherical curve of the earth's edge that dropped in a haze of air
into unutterable space. But this time they seemed more amazing than
ever, and he looked out on them with the interest of a sick child.

The car was now ascending; rapidly towards the pass up across the huge
tumbled slopes, ravines, and cliffs that lie like outworks of the
enormous wall. Seen from this great height they were in themselves
comparatively insignificant, but they at least suggested the vastness of
the bastions of which they were no more than buttresses. As Percy
turned, he could see the moonless sky alight with frosty stars, and the
dimness of the illumination made the scene even more impressive; but as
he turned again, there was a change. The vast air about him seemed now
to be perceived through frosted glass. The velvet blackness of the pine
forests had faded to heavy grey, the pale glint of water and ice seen
and gone again in a moment, the monstrous nakedness of rock spires and
slopes, rising towards him and sliding away again beneath with a
crawling motion--all these had lost their distinctness of outline, and
were veiled in invisible white. As he looked yet higher to right and
left the sight became terrifying, for the giant walls of rock rushing
towards him, the huge grotesque shapes towering on all sides, ran upward
into a curtain of cloud visible only from the dancing radiance thrown
upon it by the brilliantly lighted car. Even as he looked, two straight
fingers of splendour, resembling horns, shot out, as the bow
searchlights were turned on; and the car itself, already travelling at
half-speed, dropped to quarter-speed, and began to sway softly from side
to side as the huge air-planes beat the mist through which they moved,
and the antennae of light pierced it. Still up they went, and on--yet
swift enough to let Percy see one great pinnacle rear itself, elongate,
sink down into a cruel needle, and vanish into nothingness a thousand
feet below. The motion grew yet more nauseous, as the car moved up at a
sharp angle preserving its level, simultaneously rising, advancing and
swaying. Once, hoarse and s