noon
And between these threatening heights the Wakhan river hurried , a pale streak of light , now grey , now silver , as the clouds , like great birds of ill-omen , chased one another across the moon . The sinister aspect of the place had its effect on Lenox , hypersensitised as he was by anxiety over lost hours , and by the premonitory chill of fever , strengthening that prescience of disaster which saps spirit and courage more surely than disaster itself . But they were on the march again betimes , next morning , breasting the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush , which at this point can be crossed without much difficulty . Before noon they were over the crest ; and Lenox , weary at last of his nightmare struggle with the mountains , dropped thankfully into the Yarkhun valley , beyond which towered his last great obstacle -- the Darkót Pass . It was late afternoon , and , come what might , he intended to requisition a guide -LRB- no easy matter -RRB- and push his way across at daylight . But neither earth nor heaven had a word of encouragement for the man who scanned them with tired , desperate eyes . At his feet the Yarkhun river whirled and foamed , a grey glacier torrent , thick with the milky scum of ice-ground salt ; beyond it the ink-black gorge leading to the summit was shrouded in a scroll of threatening cloud ; and the first natives whom they questioned as to the state of the pass replied unconcernedly that it had been closed four days ; adding that no man who valued his life would attempt to cross it in uncertain weather .