“Our last difficulty, Wallie,” said Garratt Skinner, as he cut a large step in which Hine might stand.  “Once up that wall, our troubles are over.”

Walter Hine looked at the wall.  It was not smooth ice, it was true; blocks had broken loose from it, and had left it bulging out here, there, and in places fissured.  But it stood at an angle of 65 degrees.  It seemed impossible that any one should ascend it.  He looked down the slope up which they had climbed—­it seemed equally impossible that any one should return.  Moreover, the sun was already in the West, and the ice promontory under which they stood shut its warmth from them.  Walter Hine was in the shadow, and he shivered with cold as much as with fear.  For half an hour Pierre Delouvain tried desperately to work his way up that ice wall, and failed.

“It is too late,” he said.  “We shall not get up to-night.”

Garratt Skinner nodded his head.

“No, nor get down,” he added, gravely.  “I am sorry, Wallie.  We must go back and find a place where we can pass the night.”

Walter Hine was in despair.  He was tired, he was desperately cold, his gloves were frozen, his fingers and his feet benumbed.

“Oh, let’s stop here!” he cried.

“We can’t,” said Garratt Skinner, and he turned as he spoke and led the way down quickly.  There was need for hurry.  Every now and then he stopped to cut an intervening step, where those already cut were too far apart, and at times to give Hine a hand while Delouvain let him down with the help of the rope from behind.

Slowly they descended, and while they descended the sun disappeared, the mists gathered about the precipices below, the thunder of the avalanches was heard at rare intervals, the ice-cliffs above them glimmered faintly and still more faintly.  The dusk came.  They descended in a ghostly twilight.  At times the mists would part, and below them infinite miles away they saw the ice-fields of the Brenva glacier.  The light was failing altogether when Garratt Skinner turned to his left and began to traverse the slopes to a small patch of rocks.

“Here!” he said, as he reached them.  “We must sit here until the morning comes.”

CHAPTER XXV

A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE

At the base of the rocks there was a narrow ledge on which, huddled together, the three men could sit side by side.  Garratt Skinner began to clear the snow from the ledge with his ice-ax; but Walter Hine sank down at once and Pierre Delouvain, who might have shown a better spirit, promptly followed his example.

“What is the use?” he whispered.  “We shall all die to-night....  I have a wife and family....  Let us eat what there is to eat and then die,” and drowsily repeating his words, he fell asleep.  Garratt Skinner, however, roused him, and drowsily he helped to clear the ledge.  Then Walter Hine was placed in the middle that he might get what warmth and shelter was to be had, the rope was hitched over a spike of rock behind, so that if any one fell asleep he might not fall off, and Delouvain and Skinner took their places.  By this time darkness had come.  They sat upon the narrow ledge with their backs to the rock and the steep snow-slopes falling away at their feet.  Far down a light or two glimmered in the chalets of La Brenva.