Gravity was now in our favour, but gravity could not entirely spare our wearied limbs, and where we sank in the snow we found our downward progress very trying. I suffered from thirst, but after we had divided the liquefied snow at the Petits Mulets amongst us we had nothing to drink. I crammed the clean snow into my mouth, but the process of melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched throat, while the chill was painful to the teeth. We marched along the Corridor, and crossed cautiously the perilous slope on which we had cut steps in the morning, breathing more freely after we had cleared the ice-precipice before described. Along the base of this precipice we now wound, diverging from our morning's track, in order to get surer footing in the snow; it was like flour, and while descending to the Grand Plateau we sometimes sank in it nearly to the waist. When I endeavoured to squeeze it, so as to fill my flask, it at first refused to cling together, behaving like so much salt; the heat of the hand, however, soon rendered it a little moist, and capable of being pressed into compact masses. The sun met us here with extraordinary power; the heat relaxed my muscles, but when fairly immersed in the shadow of the Dome du Gouter, the coolness restored my strength, which augmented as the evening advanced. Simond insisted on the necessity of haste, to save us from the perils of darkness. "_On peut perir_" was his repeated admonition, and he was quite right. We reached the region of _ponts_, more weary, but, in compensation, more callous, than we had been in the morning, and moved over the soft snow of the bridges as if we had been walking upon eggs. The valley of Chamouni was filled with brown-red clouds, which crept towards us up the mountain; the air around and above us was, however, clear, and the chastened light told us that day was departing. Once as we hung upon a steep slope, where the snow was exceedingly soft, Hirst omitted to make his footing sure; the soft mass gave way, and he fell, uttering a startled shout as he went down the declivity. I was attached to him, and, fixing my feet suddenly in the snow, endeavoured to check his fall, but I seemed a mere feather in opposition to the force with which he descended.[C] I fell, and went down after him; and we carried quite an avalanche of snow along with us, in which we were almost completely hidden at the bottom of the slope. All further dangers, however, were soon past, and we went at a headlong speed to the base of the Grands Mulets; the sound of our batons against the rocks calling Huxley forth. A position more desolate than his had been can hardly be imagined. For seventeen hours he had been there. He had expected us at two o'clock in the afternoon; the hours came and passed, and till seven in the evening he had looked for us. "To the end of my life," he said, "I shall never forget the sound of those batons." It was his turn now to