Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/337

284 at the huge cliffs amongst which one has been wandering, free from all the thought of hurry, of moraines, or of darkness.

Towards evening the gathering clouds burst in thunder, and the screes below us, right down to the glacier, were powdered with hail and snow. As the moon rose, however, the curtain was rent apart, and the great ridges, shining in the brilliant whiteness of fresh-fallen snow, gazed at us across the dark gulf of the Bezingi glacier. The evening, being windless, was comparatively warm, and it was nearly midnight before Zurfluh's peaceful slumbers were disturbed by the struggles of a shivering Herr with his sleeping bag.

The next morning we went down the glacier to the Misses kosh, packed up our belongings, and tramped to Tubeneli. Fresh stores had arrived from Naltcik and the old chief feasted us on chicken and cakes, but these delights failed to comfort the melancholy Zurfluh, and he flatly refused to do aught but return straight home. On Dych Tau the excitement of the climb had aroused all the vigour and strength he possessed, but now that the spurt was over he broke down completely. He was undoubtedly very poorly, and looked the mere ghost, and a most thin and melancholy ghost, of his former self. "Es gefällt mir nicht," may be good philosophy, but it undoubtedly tends to a pre-Raphaelite condition of body.