"Thank God _that's_ done with!" he muttered; though as yet the pain rather than the elation of conquest prevailed. Then, lifting Brutus in his arms, as though he had been a child, he slipped, dog and all, into his sheep-skin bag, and slept without dreams. An hour later, a sudden gust from the north swept down the ravine. Battalions of cloud blotted out the stars; and a host of snow-flakes whirled above the sleeping camp, like spirits of fairies, incapable of doing harm. The chill discomfort of snow melting on their faces woke the men, one by one, at an unearthly hour, to find their whole world shrouded in white, and a mist of snow-dust still falling. But Lenox, undismayed, ordered tea and biscuits, and lost no time in setting out. A stiff climb up the ravine into which he had flung his pill-box lay ahead of them; but since the side nearest the camp was unbroken glacier, it seemed wisest to hack their way across it before attempting the ascent. It was freezing hard: earth and sky were muffled in fine white powder, and scudding clouds constantly hid the moon. An ice-slope overlaid with snow is not pleasant going at the best of times; and on this one there were ugly rents, into which men and animals slipped, to their sore discomfort. But the way of life is by courage and persistence: and in time the thing was done. The farther side proved less formidable: and while they halted to recoup their energies, a report like thunder, followed by an unmistakable rushing sound, made every man of them catch his breath. It was an avalanche: and its appalling crescendo was coming straight down the hill on which they stood. The two Pathans remained rigid, impassive,--the greater the danger the cooler do these men become: but the Kirghiz--a creature without self-respect--shook so violently that he dropped the bridles of his ponies. "Run, Sahib . . run!" he stammered. "Or we be all dead men." But there was nowhere to run to, even had running on an ice-slope been possible; which it was not. Neither was it possible to guess the exact direction of the invisible annihilation that was racing down upon them through a mist of snow. There was nothing for it but to stand steady--till that happened which must happen. So they stood steady, without speech or movement, like men turned to stone. It may have been a matter of minutes. To Lenox it seemed a matter of years. Because, in that short breathing space, fear--overmastering fear--gripped him as it never yet had done. A year or two ago, for all his human love of life, he would have accepted a mountaineer's death with something of the same pride and stoicism as a soldier accepts death in battle. But now . . now . . life meant so infinitely more to him, that every throbbing artery and nerve rebelled against the loss of it. For it is happiness, more than conscience, that 'makes cowards of us all.'