Three planks were now placed across the room near the stove, and upon these, with their rugs folded round them, Huxley and Hirst stretched themselves, while I nestled on the boards at the most distant end of the room.  We rose at eleven o’clock, renewed the fire and warmed ourselves, after which we lay down again.  I, at length, observed a patch of pale light upon the wooden wall of the cabin, which had entered through a hole in the end of the edifice, and rising found that it was past one o’clock.  The cloudless moon was shining over the wastes of snow, and the scene outside was at once wild, grand, and beautiful.

Breakfast was soon prepared, tho’ not without difficulty; we had no candles, they had been forgotten; but I fortunately possest a box of wax matches, of which Huxley took charge, patiently igniting them in succession, and thus giving us a tolerably continuous light.  We had some tea, which had been made at the Montanvert,[56] and carried to the Grands Mulets in a bottle.  My memory of that tea is not pleasant; it had been left a whole night in contact with its leaves, and smacked strongly of tannin.  The snow-water, moreover, with which we diluted it was not pure, but left a black residuum at the bottom of the dishes in which the beverage was served.  The few provisions deemed necessary being placed in Simond’s knapsack, at twenty minutes past two o’clock we scrambled down the rocks, leaving Huxley behind us.

The snow was hardened by the night’s frost, and we were cheered by the hope of being able to accomplish the ascent with comparatively little labor.  We were environed by an atmosphere of perfect purity; the larger stars hung like gems above us, and the moon, about half full, shone with wondrous radiance in the dark firmament.  One star in particular, which lay eastward from the moon, suddenly made its appearance above one of the Aiguilles, and burned there with unspeakable splendor.  We turned once toward the Mulets, and saw Huxley’s form projected against the sky as he stood upon a pinnacle of rock; he gave us a last wave of the hand and descended, while we receded from him into the solitudes.

The evening previous our guide had examined the glacier for some distance, his progress having been arrested by a crevasse.  Beside this we soon halted:  it was spanned at one place by a bridge of snow, which was of too light a structure to permit of Simond’s testing it alone; we therefore paused while our guide uncoiled a rope and tied us all together.  The moment was to me a peculiarly solemn one.  Our little party seemed so lonely and so small amid the silence and the vastness of the surrounding scene.  We were about to try our strength under unknown conditions, and as the various possibilities of the enterprise crowded on the imagination, a sense of responsibility for a moment opprest me.  But as I looked aloft and saw the glory of the heavens, my heart lightened, and I remarked cheerily to Hirst that Nature seemed to smile upon our work.  “Yes,” he replied, in a calm and earnest voice, “and, God willing, we shall accomplish it.”