The block they turned over was roughly cylindrical, and turned over pretty readily upon their using their axe handles as levers, and at last they had it close to the brink of the awful chasm, and paused for a few moments.

"No fear of its hurting any one--eh, Saxe?" said Dale; but he spoke seriously, for the terrible nature of the place impressed him, and before going farther the two again peered down into the awful gulf.

The effect was the same on each--a peculiar shrinking, as the thought came--"Suppose I were to fall?"

"Well, Saxe," said Dale, "shall we push the piece down?"

Saxe nodded, and placed the handle of his axe under the block. Dale did the same. They raised their hands together, and the great block went over and dropped out of sight, while they stood listening and waiting for the heavy bellowing crash, which seemed as if it would never come, and then far exceeded in violence anything they had imagined.

"It isn't stupid is it, to feel a bit frightened of such a place?" said Saxe, with his face all in wrinkles.

"I should say the person must be very dense and stupid who is not frightened of such an awful place. Here, let's get on: it seems rather waste of time to spend it going to these creva.s.ses again; but it is interesting all the same."

They started upward now, and went nearly exactly over the same ground as before, till the upper creva.s.se was reached; and after going through the same performance of sending down a block of ice, Dale suggested that as it would be unwise to go farther up the glacier, here covered with snow, without the help of the guide, they should make for the side of the gorge, and at the first opening climb up and make their way over the lower slopes of the mountain, and so back to camp.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE BLACK RAVINE.

Perfectly simple to arrange, but very difficult to practise. For instance, they had to toil on quite a mile before the narrow crack, which formed the bed of a streamlet, offered itself as a way out of the glacier valley.

"I'm afraid this will be an awkward climb, Saxe," said Dale. "What do you say? Will you face the hard work?"

"Oh yes!" he cried. "It's better than going the same way back."

"Up you go, then."

Saxe went on, now on one side of the tiny stream, now on the other, the sides rising right and left almost perpendicularly at times. But there was plenty of good foot and hand-hold, so that Saxe made his way onward and upward at a fair rate for mountaineering, and in a very short time they had taken a last look of the glacier; the narrow rift, turned almost at right angles, growing blacker and more forbidding in aspect at every step.

"I don't believe there is any way out here!" cried Saxe at last. "It gets deeper and darker, as if it were a cut right into the mountain."

He had paused to rest as he spoke, and the gurgling of the little stream down a crack far below mingled with his words.

"Well, let's go a little farther first," said Dale. "I am beginning to think it is going to be a cul de sac."

He looked up to right and left at the walls of black rock growing higher the farther they went, and now quite made up his mind that there would be no exit from the gorge; but all the same, it had a peculiar fascination for both, from its seeming to be a place where the foot of man had never before trod, and the possibility of their making some discovery deep in among the black rocks of the weird chasm.

"Tired? Shall we turn back?" said Dale from time to time.

"Oh no! let's go a little farther. This ought to be the sort of place to find crystals, oughtn't it?"

"I can't give you any information, my lad, about that; only that I have seen no sign of any. Say when you want to turn back."

"All right. Oh! look here!"

The chasm had made another turn, and as Saxe spoke he climbed on a little farther, so as to make room for his companion to join him among the fragments of broken rock upon which he stood. And there, right before them, the walls seemed to run together in the side of a black ma.s.s of rock, which formed the base of a snowy peak, one which they recognised as having often seen, and now looking the more brilliant in contrast with the black rock from which it rose.

"We could get there in another quarter of an hour," said Saxe.

"Yes; but what good shall we do when we get there?" replied Dale. "You see that the rocks to right and left are not to be scaled, or that this place ends in a mere gash or split."

"But you never know till you get close up," said Saxe. "The rocks fold over one another; so that we may after all find a way out and over the mountain."

"Well, if you are not too tired we'll try. This stream must come from somewhere. Hear it?"

"Yes, I can hear," said Saxe, as he listened to the strange musical gurgle of running waters somewhere far down below the blocks which had fallen from the sides of the chasm.

He started on climbing from stone to stone--some planted solidly, others so nearly poised that they rocked beneath his feet.

"One good thing," he cried breathlessly: "you can't fall any lower. How narrow the place is!"

It grew narrower still before they reached the spot where the place ended in the cleft in the face of the black rock; but, just as the boy had said, there was a fold of the chasm, quite a knife-edge of stone round, and beyond which the stream came gurgling down, and apparently going directly upward to the right.

"There!" cried Saxe. "What did I tell you? This is the way up. Shall I go on?"

"Yes, a little way; but I did not reckon on these difficulties. We will only explore a little to-day. To-morrow we can come straight here earlier, and take our time."

The place was narrower than ever now, and the rocks rose perpendicularly, so high that the place was almost in twilight. It was nearly a repet.i.tion of the chasm up which they had come, save that one side was the mountain itself, the other a portion split off.

The mountain side proving the easier, as the stones in the bottom grew more ma.s.sive and difficult to climb, the boy took to the slope, and made such rapid progress that Dale was left behind; and he was about to shout to Saxe not to hurry, when he saw that the boy was waiting some eighty or ninety yards in advance, and high up above the bottom of the gorge along which Dale had proceeded in a slower and surer way.

Dale went on till he was right below the boy, and then stopped to wipe his forehead.

"Let's get back, Saxe," he said: "there may be traces of this narrow crack going right round the mountain. Ready?"

There was no answer.

"Saxe!"

"Yes," rather hoa.r.s.ely.

"Come down now, and let's go back."

There was again no answer.

"Why don't you come down?" said Dale.

"I--I'll come down directly."

"Curious place--very curious place!" said Dale, looking about him at the solid walls of rock. "I shouldn't wonder if we came upon crevices similar to those which we found lower down in the sides of the glacier: perhaps we may hit upon a cavern that we can explore. I must bring Melchior up here: he has a nose like a dog for holes of that kind."

He stood peering here and there with his back to Saxe, and did not turn for a few minutes. When at last he did, he saw that the boy was in precisely the same position.

"Why, Saxe, my lad," he said, "what are you doing? Why don't you come down?"

The lad turned his head very slowly till he could look down, and fixed his eyes upon his companion in a peculiar, wild way.