there was little wonder that when we came upon a huge mass of rock as big as a house, which had fallen from the flanks of Pelvoux, a regular cube that offered no shelter whatever, Moore cried out in ecstasy, "Oh, how delightful! the very thing I have been longing for. Let us have a perfectly extemporaneous bivouac." This, it should be said, was when the night threatened thunder and lightning, rain, and all other delights.
The pleasures of a perfectly extemporaneous bivouac under these circumstances not being novelties to Croz and myself, we thought we would try for the miseries of a roof, but Walker and Almer, with their usual good nature, declared it was the very thing that they, too, were longing for; so the trio resolved to stop. We generously left them all the provisions (a dozen cubic inches or thereabouts of bacon fat, and half a candle), and pushed on for the chalets of Aléfroide, or at least we thought we did, but could not be certain. In the course of half-an-hour we got uncommonly close to the main torrent, and Croz all at once disappeared. I stepped cautiously forward to peer down into the place where I thought he was, and quietly tumbled head over heels into a big rhododendron bush. Extricating myself with some trouble, I fell backwards over some rocks, and got wedged in a cleft so close to the torrent that it splashed all over me.
The colloquy which then ensued amid the thundering of the stream was as follows:—
"Hullo, Croz!" "Eh, Monsieur." "Where are you?" "Here, Monsieur." "Where is here?" "I don't know; where are you?" "Here, Croz;" and so on.
The fact was, from the intense darkness, and the noise of the torrent, we had no idea of each other's situation; in the course of ten minutes, however, we joined together again, agreed we had quite enough of that kind of thing, and adjourned to a most eligible rock at 10.15.
How well I remember the night at that rock, and the jolly way in which Croz came out! We were both very wet about the legs,
