"Christien!" he said again, and his own voice
seemed to echo strangely on his ear. "Speak!
Is it you?"

Still no one answered. He leaned out into
the dark night; but could see nothing—not
even the outline of the porch below. He began to
think that his imagination had deceived him,
when suddenly the strain burst forth again;—this
time, apparently in his own chamber.

As he turned, expecting to find Christien at his
elbow, the sounds broke off abruptly, and a
sensation of intensest cold seized him in every limb—
not the mere chill of nervous terror, not the mere
physical result of exposure to wind and rain, but
a deadly freezing of every vein, a paralysis of
every nerve, an appalling consciousness that in a
few moments more the lungs must cease to play,
and the heart to beat! Powerless to speak or
stir, he closed his eyes, and believed that he was
dying.

This strange faintness lasted but a few seconds.
Gradually the vital warmth returned, and, with
it, strength to close the window, and stagger to
a chair. As he did so, he found the breast of
his shirt all stiff and frozen, and the rain clinging
in solid icicles upon his hair.

He looked at his watch. It had stopped at
twenty minutes before twelve. He took his
thermometer from the chimney-piece, and found the
mercury at sixty-eight. Heavenly powers! How
were these things possible in a temperature of
sixty-eight degrees, and with a large fire blazing
on the hearth?

He poured out half a tumbler of cognac, and
drank it at a draught. Going to bed was out
of the question. He felt that he dared not sleep
—that he scarcely dared to think. All he could
do, was, to change his linen, pile on more logs,
wrap himself in his blankets, and sit all night in
an easy-chair before the fire.

My brother had not long sat thus, however,
before the warmth, and probably the nervous
reaction, drew him off to sleep. In the morning
he found himself lying on the bed, without being
able to remember in the least how or when he
reached it.

It was again a glorious day. The rain and wind
were gone, and the Silverhorn at the end of the
valley lifted its head into an unclouded sky.
Looking out upon the sunshine, he almost doubted
the events of the night, and, but for the evidence
of his watch, which still pointed to twenty
minutes before twelve, would have been
disposed to treat the whole matter as a dream. As
it was, he attributed more than half his terrors
to the prompting of an over-active and over-
wearied brain. For all this, he still felt depressed
and uneasy, and so very unwilling to pass another
night at Lauterbrunnen, that he made up his
mind to proceed that morning to Interlaken.
While he was yet loitering over his breakfast, and
considering whether he should walk the
miles of road, or hire a vehicle, a char came
rapidly up to the inn door, and a young man
jumped out.

"Why, Battisto!" exclaimed my brother, in
astonishment, as he came into the room; "what
brings you here to-day? Where is Stefano?"

"I have left him at Interlaken, signor,"
replied the Italian.

Something there was in his voice, something
in his face, both strange and startling.

"What is the matter?" asked my brother,
breathlessly. "He is not ill? No accident has
happened?"

Battisto shook his head, glanced furtively up
and down the passage, and closed the door.

"Stefano is well, signor; but—but a circumstance
has occurred—a circumstance so strange!
Signor, do you believe in spirits?"

"In spirits, Battisto?"

"Ay, signor; for if ever the spirit of any
man, dead or living, appealed to human ears, the
spirit of Christien came to me last night, at
twenty minutes before twelve o'clock."

"At twenty minutes before twelve o'clock!"
repeated my brother.

"I was in bed, signor, and Stefano was sleeping
in the same room. I had gone up quite warm,
and had fallen asleep, full of pleasant thoughts.
By-and-by, although I had plenty of bed-clothes,
and a rug over me as well, I woke, frozen with
cold and scarcely able to breathe. I tried to call
to Stefano; but I had no power to utter the
slightest sound. I thought my last moment was
come. All at once, I heard a sound under the
window—a sound which I knew to be Christien's
musical box; and it played as it played when
we lunched under the fir-trees, except that it was
more wild and strange and melancholy and most
solemn to hear—awful to hear! Then, signor, it
grew fainter and fainter—and then it seemed to
float past upon the wind, and die away. When it
ceased, my frozen blood grew warm again, and I
cried out to Stefano. When I told him what had
happened, he declared I had been only dreaming.
I made him strike a light, that I might look
at my watch. It pointed to twenty minutes
before twelve, and had stopped there; and—
stranger still—Stefano's watch had done the very
same. Now tell me, signor, do you believe that
there is any meaning in this, or do you think, as
Stefano persists in thinking, that it was all a
dream?"

"What is your own conclusion, Battisto?"

"My conclusion, signor, is that some harm
has happened to poor Christien on the glacier,
and that his spirit came to me last night."

"Battisto, he shall have help if living, or
rescue for his poor corpse if dead; for I, too,
believe that all is not well."

And with this, my brother told him briefly
what had occurred to himself in the night;
despatched messengers for the three best guides in
Lauterbrunnen; and prepared ropes, ice-hatchets,
alpenstocks, and all such matters necessary for a
glacier expedition. Hasten as he would, however,
it was nearly mid-day before the party
started.

Arriving in about half an hour at a place called