three o'clock in the
morning
An hour and a half later they were all safe under the roof of the cabin . They had brought the corpse with them . Sir George Young tarried there but a few minutes , and then began the long and troublesome descent from the cabin to Chamonix . He probably reached there about two or three o'clock in the morning , after having been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during two days and two nights . His endurance was equal to his daring . The cause of the unaccountable delay of Sir George and the relief parties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thick fog -- or , partly that and partly the slow and difficult work of conveying the dead body down the perilous steeps . The corpse , upon being viewed at the inquest , showed no bruises , and it was some time before the surgeons discovered that the neck was broken .