The people talked together in groups; the guides and
drivers whispered apart, and looked up at the sky; no one wished them a
good journey.
As they began the ascent, a gleam of run shone from the otherwise
unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the town to
silver.
"A good omen!" said Vendale (though it died out while he spoke). "Perhaps
our example will open the Pass on this side."
"No; we shall not be followed," returned Obenreizer, looking up at the
sky and back at the valley. "We shall be alone up yonder."
ON THE MOUNTAIN
The road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and
easier to breathe as the two ascended. But the settled gloom remained as
it had remained for days back. Nature seemed to have come to a pause.
The sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by
having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that
impended. The silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering
clouds--or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky,
and that one covering the whole of it.
Although the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not
obscured. Down in the valley of the Rhone behind them, the stream could
be traced through all its many windings, oppressively sombre and solemn
in its one leaden hue, a colourless waste. Far and high above them,
glaciers and suspended avalanches overhung the spots where they must
pass, by-and-by; deep and dark below them on their right, were awful
precipice and roaring torrent; tremendous mountains arose in every vista.
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