Then he led her out of the cave.
As they had believed it would be an easy matter to run down from the
mountain they had not thought of eating and had not searched the bag, to
see whether it contained any wheat-bread or other eatables.
The sky being clear, Conrad had wanted to look down from the mountain
into the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend
to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any
mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious
country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful
rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen
the day before; they saw the glacier, they saw hummocks and slanting
snow-fields, and behind these, either the sky or the blue peak of some
very distant mountain above the edge of the snowy horizon.
At this moment the sun arose.
A gigantic, bloody red disk emerged above the white horizon and
immediately the snow about the children blushed as if it had been strewn
with millions of roses. The knobs and pinnacles of the mountain cast
very long and greenish shadows along the snow.
"Sanna, we shall go on here, until we come to the edge of the mountain
and can look down," said the boy.
They went farther into the snow. In the clear night, it had become still
drier and easily yielded to their steps. They waded stoutly on.
Pages:
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533