It is the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with a merciful swiftness, but here the rule failed.  These men suffered the bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of those mountains, freighted as that history is with grisly tragedies.

CHAPTER XLVI [Meeting a Hog on a Precipice]

Mr. Harris and I took some guides and porters and ascended to the Ho^tel des Pyramides, which is perched on the high moraine which borders the Glacier des Bossons.  The road led sharply uphill, all the way, through grass and flowers and woods, and was a pleasant walk, barring the fatigue of the climb.

From the hotel we could view the huge glacier at very close range.  After a rest we followed down a path which had been made in the steep inner frontage of the moraine, and stepped upon the glacier itself.  One of the shows of the place was a tunnel-like cavern, which had been hewn in the glacier.  The proprietor of this tunnel took candles and conducted us into it.  It was three or four feet wide and about six feet high.  Its walls of pure and solid ice emitted a soft and rich blue light that produced a lovely effect, and suggested enchanted caves, and that sort of thing.  When we had proceeded some yards and were entering darkness, we turned about and had a dainty sunlit picture of distant woods and heights framed in the strong arch of the tunnel and seen through the tender blue radiance of the tunnel’s atmosphere.

The cavern was nearly a hundred yards long, and when we reached its inner limit the proprietor stepped into a branch tunnel with his candles and left us buried in the bowels of the glacier, and in pitch-darkness.  We judged his purpose was murder and robbery; so we got out our matches and prepared to sell our lives as dearly as possible by setting the glacier on fire if the worst came to the worst—­but we soon perceived that this man had changed his mind; he began to sing, in a deep, melodious voice, and woke some curious and pleasing echoes.  By and by he came back and pretended that that was what he had gone behind there for.  We believed as much of that as we wanted to.

Thus our lives had been once more in imminent peril, but by the exercise of the swift sagacity and cool courage which had saved us so often, we had added another escape to the long list.  The tourist should visit that ice-cavern, by all means, for it is well worth the trouble; but I would advise him to go only with a strong and well-armed force.  I do not consider artillery necessary, yet it would not be unadvisable to take it along, if convenient.  The journey, going and coming, is about three miles and a half, three of which are on level ground.  We made it in less than a day, but I would counsel the unpracticed—­if not pressed for time—­to allow themselves two.  Nothing is gained in the Alps by over-exertion; nothing is gained by crowding two days’ work into one for the poor sake of being able to boast of the exploit afterward.  It will be found much better, in the long run, to do the thing in two days, and then subtract one of them from the narrative.  This saves fatigue, and does not injure the narrative.  All the more thoughtful among the Alpine tourists do this.