As yet they were in gloom, for the sun was behind them, but presently light began to flow over their crests like a flood.

Down it crept, lower, and yet lower, till it reached a little plateau not three hundred yards above us.
There, on the edge of the plateau, looking out solemnly across the waste, sat a great ruined idol, a colossal Buddha, while to the rear of the idol, built of yellow stone, appeared the low crescent-shaped mass of a monastery.
"At last!" cried Leo, "oh, Heaven! at last!" and, flinging himself down, he buried his face in the snow as though to hide it there, lest I should read something written on it which he did not desire that even I should see.
I let him lie a space, understanding what was passing in his heart, and indeed in mine also.

Then going to the yak that, poor brute, had no share in these joyous emotions but only lowed and looked round with hungry eyes, I piled the sheepskin rugs on to its back.

This done, I laid my hand on Leo's shoulder, saying, in the most matter-of-fact voice I could command--"Come.

If that place is not deserted, we may find food and shelter there, and it is beginning to storm again." He rose without a word, brushed the snow from his beard and garments and came to help me to lift the yak to its feet, for the worn-out beast was too stiff and weak to rise of itself.