walked mechanically, taking the line of
least resistance; his head sagged forward; he saw nothing but the hummocks
before him. These grew larger; they changed to narrow ridges with fissures
between. After a while, one of these breaks roused him. It was exceedingly
deep; he could not see either end of it. The only way was to leap, and he
did it clumsily. Then, with his alpenstock fixed, and his spiked heels set
in the crust, he reached a hand to her. She was barely able to spring to
the lower side, but it did not terrify her. One fear only possessed her.
Her glance, seeking, returned to the hidden canyon. But soon they were
confronted by a wider and still deeper chasm. It was impossible to cross
it, though it seemed to narrow upwards in the direction of the summit. He
took her arm and began to ascend, looking for a way over. The pitch grew
steadily sharper. They entered the thinning edge of the cloud, and it
became transparent like tissue of gold. Suddenly it parted, and Frederic
stopped, blinded by the blaze of a red sunset on snow. He closed his eyes
an instant, while, to avoid the glare, he turned his face. His first
glance shocked him into a sense of great peril. The two fissures ran
parallel, and they were ascending a tongue of ice between. Not far below,
it narrowed to a point where the two crevasses, uniting, yawned in one.
His knees weakened, but he managed to swing himself cautiously around. The
causeway seemed to rock under his weight; then, shading his sight with his
hand, he saw they were almost beneath the shoulder he had tried to reach.
They had climbed too high, as he had believed, but also they had descended
too far. And they had come directly down the glacier, to cross the upper
end of which Banks had found it necessary to use a lifeline. "Be careful!"
he whispered thickly, and laid his hand on her shoulder, impelling her on.
"Be careful, but, for God's sake, hurry!"

He crowded her faster and faster up the incline; he dared not move
abreast, it was so narrow. Sometimes he lifted her bodily, for with every
step his panic grew. Beads of moisture gathered on his face, though the
wind stiffened and sharpened; his own breath out-labored hers, and he
cried again over and over: "God Almighty!" and "Almighty God!" Sometimes
his tone was blasphemy and sometimes prayer.

But the moment came when she could not be farther pressed. Her shoulder
trembled under his hold, her limbs gave, and she sank down, to her knees