We commenced the descent of the face. It was hideous work. The men looked like impersonations of Winter, with their hair all frosted, and their beards matted with ice. My hands were numbed—dead. I begged the others to stop. “_We cannot afford to stop; we must continue to move_,” was their reply. They were right; to stop was to be entirely frozen. So we went down; gripping rocks varnished with ice, which pulled the skin from the fingers. Gloves were useless; they became iced too, and the bâtons slid through them as slippery as eels. The iron of the axes stuck to the fingers—it felt red-hot; but it was useless to shrink, the rocks and the axes had to be firmly grasped—no faltering would do here. We turned back at 4.12 P.M., and at 8.15 crossed the bergschrund again, not having halted for a minute upon the entire descent. During the last two hours it was windless, but time was of such vital importance that we pressed on incessantly, and did not stop until we were fairly upon the glacier. Then we took stock of what remained of the tips of our fingers. There was not much skin left; they were perfectly raw, and for weeks afterwards I was reminded of the ascent of the Dent Blanche by the twinges which I felt when I pulled on my boots. The others escaped with some slight frost-bites; and, altogether, we had reason to congratulate ourselves that we got off so lightly. The men complimented me upon the descent, and I could do the same honestly to them. If they had worked less vigorously, or harmoniously, we should have been benighted upon the face, where there was not a single spot upon which it was possible to sit; and if that had happened, I do not think that one would have survived to tell the tale. We made the descent of the glacier in a mist, and of the moraine at its base, and of the slopes below, in total darkness, and regained the chalets of Abricolla at 11.45 P.M. We had been absent eighteen and a half hours, and out of that time had been going not less than seventeen. That night we slept the sleep of those who are thoroughly tired.(172) [Illustration: T. S. KENNEDY.] Two days afterwards, when walking into Zermatt, whom should we meet but Mr. Kennedy. “Hullo!” we said, “we have just seen your cairn on the top of the Dent Blanche.” “No, you haven’t,” he answered, very positively. “What do you mean?” “Why, that you cannot have seen my cairn, because I didn’t make one!” “Well, but we saw _a_ cairn.” “No doubt; it was made by a man who went up the mountain last year with Lauener and Zurfluh,” “O-o-h,” we said, rather disgusted at hearing news when we expected to communicate some, “O-o-h! good morning, Kennedy.” Before this happened, we managed to lose our way upon the Col d’Hérens; but an account of that must be reserved for the next chapter. CHAPTER XIV. LOST ON THE COL D’HÉRENS.—MY SEVENTH ATTEMPT TO ASCEND THE MATTERHORN.