We can't
stay here all night."
Yet when Armine went a step or two to see whether there was any
practicability of moving, he instantly called out against his
attempting to go away. He was in a good deal of pain, and high-
spirited boy as he was, was thoroughly unnerved and appalled, and
much less able to consider than the usually quieter and more timid
Armine. Suddenly there was a frightful thunderous roar and crash,
and with a cry of "An avalanche," the brothers clasped one another
fast and shut their eyes, but ere the words "Have mercy" were uttered
all was still again, and they found themselves alive!
"I don't think it was an avalanche," said Armine, recovering first.
"It was most likely to be a great mass of ice tumbling off the arch
at the bottom of the glacier. They do make a most awful row. I've
heard one before, only not so near. Anyway we can't be far from the
bottom of the glacier, if I only could crawl there."
"No, no;" cried Jock, holding him tight; "I tell you, you can't do
it."
Jock could not have defined whether he was most actuated by fears for
his brother's safety or by actual terror at being left alone and
helpless. At any rate Armine much preferred remaining, in all the
certain misery and danger, to losing sight of his brother, with the
great probability of only being further lost himself.
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