“This is getting serious,” muttered Christian, with a pitiful laugh. The perspiration was running down his face, burning his eyes, and dripping from his chin. With straining eyes he peered into the night. Close beneath him there was a ledge of some breadth. It was not flat, but inclined upwards from the face of the cliff, thus forming a shelf of solid stone. For some seconds he stared continuously at this, so as to reduce to a minimum the chance of being mistaken. Then with great caution he slid down the steep incline of smooth stone and landed safely. The glissade lasted but a moment, nevertheless it recalled to his mind a picture which was indelibly stamped in his memory. Years before he had seen a man slide like this, unintentionally, after a false step. Again that picture came to him--unimpressionable as his life had rendered him. Again he saw the glittering expanse of snow, and on it the broad, strong figure of the Vaudois guide sliding down and down, with madly increasing speed--feet foremost, skilful to the last. Again he felt the thrill which men cannot but experience at the sight of a man, or even of a dumb beast, fighting bravely for life. Again he saw the dull gleam of the uplifted ice-axe as the man dealt scientific blow after blow on the frozen snow, attempting to arrest his terrible career. And again in his mind's eye the pure expanse of spotless white lay before him, scarred by one straight streak, marking where the taciturn mountaineer had vanished over the edge of the precipice to his certain doom. Christian lay like a half-drowned man upon the shelving ledge, slowly realising his position. He calculated that he could not yet be half-way down, and his strength was almost exhausted. Yet, as he lay there, no thought of waiting for daylight, no question of retreat entered his stubborn West-country brain. The exploit still possessed for him the elements of a good joke, to be related thereafter in such a manner as would enforce laughter.