“Yes, Conrad.”

“And below it where the snow stopped one sees all sorts of colors if one looks close—­green, blue, and whitish—­that is the ice; but it only looks so small from below, because it is so very far away.  Father said the ice will not go away before the end of the world.  And then I also often saw that there was blue color below the ice and thought it was stones, or soil and pasture-land, and then come the woods, and they go down farther and farther, and there are some boulders in them too, and then come meadows that are already green, and then the green leafy-woods, and then our meadow-lands and fields in the valley of Gschaid.  Do you see now, Sanna, as we are at the ice we shall go down over the blue color, and through the forests in which are the boulders, and then over the pasture-land, and through the green leafy-forests, and then we shall be in the valley of Gschaid and easily find our way to the village.”

“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.

The children now entered upon the glacier where it was accessible.  They were like wee little pricks wandering among the huge masses.

As they were peering in under the overhanging slabs, moved as it were by an instinct to seek some shelter, they arrived at a trench, broad and deeply furrowed, which came right out of the ice.  It looked like the bed of some torrent now dried up and everywhere covered with fresh snow.  At the spot where it emerged from the ice there yawned a vault of ice beautifully arched above it.  The children continued in the trench and, entering the vault, went in farther and farther.  It was quite dry and there was smooth ice under their feet.  All the cavern, however, was blue, bluer than anything else in the world, more profoundly and more beautifully blue than the sky, as blue as azure glass through which a bright glow is diffused.  There were more or less heavy flutings, icicles hung down pointed and tufted, and the passage led inward still farther, they knew not how far; but they did not go on.  It would also have been pleasant to stay in this grotto, it was warm and no snow could come in; but it was so fearfully blue that the children took fright and ran out again.  They went on a while in the trench and then clambered over its side.

They passed along the ice, as far as it was possible to edge through that chaos of fragments and boulders.

“We shall now have to pass over this, and then we shall run down away from the ice,” said Conrad.

“Yes,” said Sanna and clung to him.

From the ice they took a direction downward over the snow which was to lead them into the valley.  But they were not to get far.  Another river of ice traversed the soft snow like a gigantic wall bulging up and towering aloft and, as it were, reaching out with its arms to the right and the left.  It was covered by snow on top, but at its sides there were gleams of blue and green and drab and black, aye, even