urled by its fury
into the ravine below. Then even above the storm a deep roar was heard.
It grew louder and louder. The wolves, as if struck with terror, leaped
to their feet, and scattered on either way along the path at full
speed.

"What sound can this be?" Cnut exclaimed in an awe-struck voice. "It
sounds like thunder; but it is regular and unbroken; and, my lord,
surely the earth quakes under our feet!"

Louder and louder grew the roar.

"Throw yourselves down against the wall of rock," Cuthbert shouted,
himself setting the example.

A moment afterward, from above a mighty mass of rock and snow poured
over like a cascade, with a roar and sound which nigh stunned them. For
minutes--it seemed for hours to them--the deluge of snow and rock
continued. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ceased, and a silence
as of death reigned over the place.

"Arise," Cuthbert said; "the danger, methinks, is past. It was what men
call an avalanche--a torrent of snow slipping down from the higher
peaks. We have had a narrow escape indeed."

By this time the knight whom they had rescued was able to speak, and
raising his visor, he returned his deepest thanks to those who had come
so opportunely to his aid.

"I was well-nigh exhausted," he said, "and it was only my armor which
saved me from being torn to pieces. A score of them had hold of me; but
fortunately my mail was of Milan proof, and even the jaws and teeth of
these enormous beasts were unable to pierce it."

"The refuge is near at hand," Cuthbert said. "It is but a few yards
round yonder point. It is well that we heard your voice. I fear that
your horse has fallen a victim."

Assisting the knight, who in spite of his armor was sorely bruised and
exhausted, they made their way back to the refuge. Cnut and the archers
were all bleeding freely from various wounds inflicted upon them in the
struggle, breathless and exhausted from their exertions, and thoroughly
awe-struck by the tremendous phenomenon of which they had been
witnesses, and which they had only escaped from their good fortune in
happening to be in a place so formed that the force of the avalanche had
swept over their heads. The whole of the road, with the exception of a
narrow piece four feet in width, had been carried away. Looking upward,
they saw that the forest had been swept clear, not a tree remaining in a
wide track as far as they could see up the hill. The great bowlders
which had strewn the hills