It is a matter of life and death." "All right." And we walked boldly along the broad strip of sward.

The moon was now almost immediately overhead, for it was midnight, or near it.

I confess the scene awed me, the giant masses of the mountains above us, the vast distances of mysterious blue air, through which the snow-peaks shone out with a strange look that was not natural.

The swish of the quickly flowing stream at the edge of the plot we were walking over sounded hollow and unearthly; the velvety whirr of the great mountain bats as they circled near us, stirred from the branches as we passed out, was disagreeable and heavy to hear.

The moon shone brighter and brighter.
We were perhaps thirty yards from the little camp, in which there might be fifty men all told.