Yet I had only been climbing among the rocks a very few moments when
every nerve was thrilling with warmth and all the arteries of the body
were filled with a rushing tide of jubilant life. "This is noble!" I
said to myself, as if I had never had a thought of retreat. A glow of
heat came through my woollen gloves from the black rocks up which I
climbed.

But I had gradually been getting out of the clear path on the face of
the rocks into a kind of gully. I did not like the look of the place.
There was a ground and polished look about the rocks at the sides which
did not please me. I have seen the like among the Clints of Minnigaff,
where the spouts of shingle make their way over the cliff. In the cleft
was a kind of curious snow, dry like sand, creaking and binding together
under foot--amazingly like pounded ice.

In the twinkling of an eye I had proof that I was right. There was a
kind of slushy roaring above, a sharp crack or two as of some monster
whip, and a sudden gust filled the gully. There was just time for me to
throw myself sideways into a convenient cleft, and to draw feet up as
close to chin as possible, when that hollow which had seemed my path,
and high up the ravine on either side, was filled with tumbling, hissing
snow, while the rocks on either side echoed with the musketry spatter of
stones and ice-pellets.

I felt something cold on my temple. As the glove came down from touching
it, there was a stain on the wool. A button of ice, no larger than a
shilling, spinning on its edge, had neatly clipped a farthing's-worth
out of the skin--as neatly as the house-surgeon of an hospital could do
it.