Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/219

178 of evening made extremely welcome. We then opened the knapsacks and had a short halt. We re-roped with Slingsby as last man, and soon found that the snow was in such a sloppy state that the utmost care would be needful. Our hopes of "rattling down to the glacier" were consequently dashed to the ground, and it was not till 6.26 p.m. that we reached the Bergschrund.

Slingsby got well over, but as Hastings followed, the rickety sérac gave a groan and a shiver and a great mass fell from it into the depths below. Happily it quieted down after this little exhibition of ill-humour, and we were able to follow on to the glacier. The crevasses proved very badly bridged, and we were constantly forced to quit our morning's track to find a more secure route. Night came on apace, and the suspicion began to float across my mind that we were in for an impromptu bivouac on the snow. Slingsby, however, rose to the occasion; quitting our route of the morning which would have taken us down a long slope of ice on which snow, varying from three to nine inches in thickness, was lying, and which, in its present sloppy condition, would have involved grave danger, he struck boldly to the right, and unravelled a complex series of obstructions as readily as an ordinary mortal would have done in broad daylight. But he was, at length, pulled up by a perpendicular cliff, which apparently constituted the edge of the world and overhung space. There is something