of the rising moon. But the glory of the full orb was in the retrospect;
for, closing the savage vista of the ravine, stood up far away a cluster
of jagged pinnacles--opal, translucent, lustrous as the peaks of icebergs
that are the frozen music of the sea.

It was the toothed summit of the Aiguille Verte, now prosaically bathed
in the light of the full moon; but to me, looking from that grim and
passionless hollow, it stood for the white hand of God lifted in menace
to the evil spirits of the glen.

I drank my fill of the good sight, and then turned me to my tramp again
with a freshness in my throat as though it had gulped a glass of
champagne. Presently I knew myself descending, leaving, as I felt rather
than saw, the stark horror of the gorge and its glimmering snow patches
above me. Puffs of a warmer air purred past my face with little friendly
sighs of welcome, and the hum of a far-off torrent struck like a wedge
into the indurated fibre of the night. As I dropped, however, the
mountain heads grew up against the moon, and withheld the comfort of her
radiance; and it was not until the whimper of the torrent had quickened
about me to a plunging roar, and my foot was on the striding bridge that
took its waters at a step, that her light broke through a topmost cleft
in the hills, and made glory of the leaping thunder that crashed beneath
my feet.

Thereafter all was peace. The road led downwards into a broadening
valley, where the smell of flowers came about me, and the mountain walls
withdrew and were no longer overwhelming. The slope eased off, dipping
and rising no more than a ground swell; and by-and-by I was on a level
track that ran straight as a stretched ribbon and was reasonable to my
tired feet.