On the third night he saw before him another snow-ridge, too far off to reach without rest, and, tethering his horse in a little crevice between the rocks, he prepared to walk to and fro all night, to keep off the deadly snow sleepiness that he felt coming over him.

"Let me but see what is beyond that next ridge," he said, "and I will lie down and die." And now, as the stillness of the night came on, and the Southern Cross began to twinkle brilliantly above the blinding snow, he was startled once more by a sound which had fallen on his ear several times during his toilsome afternoon journey: a sound as of a sudden explosion, mingled, strangely too, with the splintering of broken glass.

At first he thought it was merely the booming in his ears, or the rupture of some vessel in his bursting head.

Or was it fancy?
No; there it was again, clearer than before.

That was no noise in his head, for the patient horse turned and looked toward the place where the sound came from.