e it was
above me shining white like glass. Heaven be praised! My head broke
through; in this low and sheltered gorge it was but a film no thicker
than a penny formed by the light frost of the previous night. So I rose
from the deep and stared about me, treading water with my feet.

Then I saw the gladdest sight that ever my eyes beheld, for on the
right, not ten yards away, the water running from his hair and beard,
was Leo. Leo alive, for he broke the thin ice with his arms as he
struggled towards the shore from the deep river.[*] He saw me also, and
his grey eyes seemed to start out of his head.

[*] Usually, as we learned afterwards, the river at this
spot was quite shallow; only a foot or two in depth. It was
the avalanche that by damming it with fallen heaps of snow
had raised its level very many feet. Therefore, to this
avalanche, which had threatened to destroy us, we in reality
owed our lives, for had the stream stood only at its normal
height we must have been dashed to pieces upon the stones.
--L. H. H.

"Still living, both of us, and the precipice passed!" he shouted in a
ringing, exultant voice. "I told you we were led."

"Aye, but whither?" I answered as I too fought my way through the film
of ice.

Then it was I became aware that we were no longer alone, for on the
bank of the river, some thirty yards from us, stood two figures, a man
leaning upon a long staff and a woman. He was a very old man, for his
eyes were horny, his snow-white hair and beard hung upon the bent breast
and shoulders, and his sardonic, wrinkled features were yellow as wax.
They might have been those of a death mask cut in marble. There, clad in
an ample, monkish robe, and leaning upon the staff, he stood still as
a statue and watched us. I noted it all, every detail, although at the
time I did not know that I was doing so, as we broke our way through the
ice towards them and afterwards the picture came back to me. Also I saw
that the woman, who was very tall, pointed to us.

Nearer the bank, or rather to the rock edge of the river, its surface
was free of ice, for here the stream ran very swiftly. Seeing this, we
drew close together and swam on side by side to help each other if need
were. There was much need, for in the fringe of the torrent the strength
that had served me so long seemed to desert me, and I became helpless;
numbed, too, with the biting coldness of the water. Indeed, had