To this lower end of the dale I had never come before, and when the time arrived for me to rest, I naturally commenced to look about me and consider whether or no I might escape that way. Beneath me the torrent leaped and foamed in a mist of spray, here sweeping along the cliff with a breaking crest like a wave, there circling in a whirlpool about a boulder, and all with such a prodigious roar that I could not hear my companions speak, though they shouted trumpet-wise through their hands. 'Twas indeed no less than I had expected; the stream filled the outlet from side to side. Then I looked across to the great snow-slope opposite, and in an instant I understood the position of Captivity Hollow, as, for want of a better name, I termed the place of my confinement. The slope finished abruptly just over against me, as though it had been shorn by a knife, and I could see that the end face of it was a gigantic wall of rock. I saw this wall in profile, as one may say, and for that very reason I recognised it the more surely. 'Twas singularly flat, and unbroken by buttresses; not a patch of snow was to be discovered anywhere upon its face, and, moreover, the shape of its apex, which was like the cupola upon a church belfry, made any mistake impossible. In a word, the mountain was the Wildthurm; the wall of cliff blocked the head of the Senner Thal, and the slope on which I gazed was the eastern side, which I had likened to one of the canvas sides of a tent. If I could but cross it, I thought! No one would look for me in that direction. I could strike into one of the many ravines that led into the Vintschgau Thal to the west of Lukstein, and thence make my way to Innspruck. If only I could cross it! But I gazed at the slope, and my heart died within me. It rose before my eyes vast and steep, flashing menace from a thousand glittering points. Besides, the early summer was upon us, and the sun hot in the sky, so that never an hour passed in the forenoon but blocks of ice would split off and thunder down the incline. The notion, however, still worked in my head throughout the day, and as we returned to the hut I eagerly scanned the upper end of our ravine, for at that point the slope of the Wildthurm declined very greatly in height. Whilst the Tyrolese went in to prepare supper I stayed by the door. "Come!" shouted one of them at length--it was not Groder. "Come, unless you prefer to sleep fasting." And I turned to go in, with my mind made up; for I had perceived, running upwards beside the tongue of ice which I have described, a long, narrow ridge. 'Twas neither of ice nor snow, and in colour a reddish brown, so that I imagined it to be a mound of earth, thrown up in some way by the pressure of the snow. Along that it seemed to me that I might find a path.