H.H.
"Still living, both of us, and the precipice passed!" he shouted in a ringing, exultant voice.

"I told you we were led." "Aye, but whither ?" I answered as I too fought my way through the film of ice.
Then it was I became aware that we were no longer alone, for on the bank of the river, some thirty yards from us, stood two figures, a man leaning upon a long staff and a woman.

He was a very old man, for his eyes were horny, his snow-white hair and beard hung upon the bent breast and shoulders, and his sardonic, wrinkled features were yellow as wax.
They might have been those of a death mask cut in marble.

There, clad in an ample, monkish robe, and leaning upon the staff, he stood still as a statue and watched us.

I noted it all, every detail, although at the time I did not know that I was doing so, as we broke our way through the ice towards them and afterwards the picture came back to me.