“No,” said the being on whose arm she leaned.  “But let us go on, Minna; the place where we are is not firm enough to stand on.”

Once more the snow creaked sharply beneath the long boards fastened to their feet, and soon they reached the upper terrace of the first ledge, clearly defined upon the flank of the precipice.  The person whom Minna had addressed as Seraphitus threw his weight upon his right heel, arresting the plank—­six and a half feet long and narrow as the foot of a child—­which was fastened to his boot by a double thong of leather.  This plank, two inches thick, was covered with reindeer skin, which bristled against the snow when the foot was raised, and served to stop the wearer.  Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another “skee,” which was only two feet long, turned swiftly where he stood, caught his timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of the long boards on her feet, and placed her on a projecting rock from which he brushed the snow with his pelisse.

“You are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at your ease.”

“We are a third of the way up the Ice-Cap,” she said, looking at the peak to which she gave the popular name by which it is known in Norway; “I can hardly believe it.”

Too much out of breath to say more, she smiled at Seraphitus, who, without answering, laid his hand upon her heart and listened to its sounding throbs, rapid as those of a frightened bird.

“It often beats as fast when I run,” she said.

Seraphitus inclined his head with a gesture that was neither coldness nor indifference, and yet, despite the grace which made the movement almost tender, it none the less bespoke a certain negation, which in a woman would have seemed an exquisite coquetry.  Seraphitus clasped the young girl in his arms.  Minna accepted the caress as an answer to her words, continuing to gaze at him.  As he raised his head, and threw back with impatient gesture the golden masses of his hair to free his brow, he saw an expression of joy in the eyes of his companion.

“Yes, Minna,” he said in a voice whose paternal accents were charming from the lips of a being who was still adolescent, “Keep your eyes on me; do not look below you.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“You wish to know why? then look!”

Minna glanced quickly at her feet and cried out suddenly like a child who sees a tiger.  The awful sensation of abysses seized her; one glance sufficed to communicate its contagion.  The fiord, eager for food, bewildered her with its loud voice ringing in her ears, interposing between herself and life as though to devour her more surely.  From the crown of her head to her feet and along her spine an icy shudder ran; then suddenly intolerable heat suffused her nerves, beat in her veins and overpowered her extremities with electric shocks like those of the torpedo.  Too feeble to resist, she felt herself drawn by a mysterious power to the depths below, wherein she fancied that she saw some monster belching its venom, a monster whose magnetic eyes were charming her, whose open jaws appeared to craunch their prey before they seized it.