They walked on looking for a better place, as men will, but found none.  And at last they lay down on the cold earth under a rock that seemed to give shelter from the wind, and there sought sleep; but cold came instead, and sleep kept far from the tremendous presences of the peaks of the Pyrenees that gazed on things far from here.

An ageing moon arose, and Rodriguez touched Morano and rose up; and the two went slowly on, tired though they were.  Picture the two tiny figures, bent, shivering and weary, walking with clumsy sticks cut in the wood, amongst the scorn of those tremendous peaks, which the moon showed all too clearly.

They got little warmth from walking, they were too weary to run; and after a while they halted and burned their sticks, and got a little warmth for some moments from their fire, which burned feebly and strangely in those inhuman solitudes.

Then they went on again and their track grew steeper.  They rested again for fatigue, and rose and climbed again because of the cold; and all the while the peaks stared over them to spaces far beyond the thought of man.

Long before Spain knew anything of dawn a monster high in heaven smiled at the sun, a peak out-towering all its aged children.  It greeted the sun as though this lonely thing, that scorned the race of man since ever it came, had met a mighty equal out in Space.  The vast peak glowed, and the rest of its grey race took up the greeting leisurely one by one.  Still it was night in all Spanish houses.

Rodriguez and Morano were warmed by that cold peak’s glow, though no warmth came from it at all; but the sight of it cheered them and their pulses rallied, and so they grew warmer in that bitter hour.

And then dawn came, and showed them that they were near the top of the pass.  They had come to the snow that gleams there everlastingly.

There was no material for a fire but they ate cold meats, and went wearily on.  They passed through that awful assemblage of peaks.  By noon they were walking upon level ground.

In the afternoon Rodriguez, tired with the journey and with the heat of the sun, decided that it was possible to sleep, and, wrapping his cloak around him, he lay down, doing what Morano would have done, by instinct.  Morano was asleep at once and Rodriguez soon after.  They awoke with the cold at sunset.

Refreshed amazingly they ate some food and started their walk again to keep themselves warm for the night.  They were still on level ground and set out with a good stride in their relief at being done with climbing.  Later they slowed down and wandered just to keep warm.  And some time in the starlight they felt their path dip, and knew that they were going downward now to the land of Rodriguez’ dreams.