"I say," cried Saxe, after they had gone on crunching through the snow,
which was soft and melting fast.
"Yes: what is it?"
"Don't you feel as if we were horses haltered together for market?"
"I might answer, sir--Don't you feel like a donkey being led?"
"No. Why?"
"Because you ask such an absurd, childish question, and that at a
serious time."
Saxe was silent.
"Mr Dale needn't be so gruff," he said to himself, as he tramped on,
looking up at the rocky sides of the valley, which grew more and more
snow-clad as they went on, and giving himself greater trouble by missing
the footsteps of his leaders. Once he nearly stumbled and fell, giving
a jerk to the rope; but he recovered himself directly, and tramped on in
silence, finding the going so arduous that he began to wish for the time
when they would leave the glacier and take to the rocks.
But he could not keep silence long.
"Shall we have to go back along the mountain?" he said. "Or will there
be some other track?"
"I expect we shall cross the ridge into a similar valley to this, and go
down another glacier; but--Ah! Hold tight!"
He threw himself backward, tightening the rope, and as soon as he could
get over his surprise at the suddenness of the accident, Saxe followed
his companion's example. For all at once Melchior disappeared, passing
through the snow, and a hollow, echoing, rushing noise fell upon their
ears.
"Haul away, gentlemen!" cried the guide's voice; and as they dragged at
the rope, they saw his arms appear with the ice-axe, which was struck
down into the snow, and directly after the man climbed out, rose from
his hands and knees, and shook the snow off his clothes.
"We wanted the rope, you see," he said quietly. "I ought to have known
by the snow that this part was dangerous. No harm done, gentlemen.
Let's strike off for the side."
"But you went through," said Saxe excitedly. "Was it a crevasse?"
"Yes, of course," said the guide, smiling.
"Was it deep?"
"Deep? Oh yes! Would you like to look?"
Saxe nodded, and the guide drew back for him to pass, but took hold of
the rope and held it tightly.
"Go on," he said encouragingly. "I have you fast."
"But how near can I go?" said Saxe, hesitating.
"Nearly to where I broke through the snow crust. You will see."
Saxe went on cautiously, still seeing nothing till he was close upon the
hole, which was a fairly wide opening, a quantity of half-frozen snow
having given way as the guide's weight rested upon it, and dropped into
the black-looking rift, which was lightly bridged over on either side by
the snow.
"Lean over if you like, and hang on by the rope," said Melchior, "if you
want to look down."
Saxe could not say he did not want to look down, for there was a strange
fascination about the place which seemed to draw him. But he resisted,
and after a quick glance at the thick snow which arched over the
crevasse, he drew back; and Melchior led on again, striking the shaft of
his ice-axe handle down through the crust before him at every step, and
divining, by long practice and the colour of the snow, the direction of
the crevasse so well, that he only once diverged from the edge
sufficiently for the handle to go right down.
"We can cross here," he said at last.
"Are you sure?" said Dale.
The guide smiled, and stamped heavily right across.
"We are beyond the end of the crevasse," he said; and once more they
went on upward.
"These cracks make the glacier very dangerous," observed Dale, after a
few minutes.
"Not with a rope and care," said Melchior, as he trudged on, shouting
his words and not turning his head. "But what will you? See how much
easier it is. It would take us hours longer to keep to the rocks.
There is a crevasse here: walk lightly--just in my steps."
They followed him carefully, without realising when they were passing
over the opening, the difference in the appearance of the snow being
only plain to the guide; and then onward again till the place was
opposite to them where they were to leave the ice river and climb to the
rocks.
"One moment," said Dale: "let's take one look round before we leave this
part. Look, Saxe! the view is magnificent."
"Yes; and you can see better from here," cried the boy enthusiastically,
as he stepped forward a few yards.
"Ah! not that way!" cried Melchior.
The warning came too late, for Saxe dropped through suddenly, tightening
the rope with a jerk which threw Dale forward upon his face, and drew
him a little way on toward the crevasse, whose slight covering of snow
had given way.
But Melchior threw himself back, and stopped farther progress, as Saxe's
voice came up from below in a smothered way--
"Ahoy! Help! help!"
"Get to your feet," cried Melchior to Dale; "I'll keep the rope tight."
"Yes," cried Dale, scrambling up; "now, quick!--both together, to draw
him out."
"Draw him out? No," said the guide quietly. "Now plant your feet
firmly, and hold him till I come to your side."
Dale obeyed at once, and shouting to Saxe that help was coming, he stood
fast, waiting for the guide.
Meanwhile, Saxe, who had felt the snow suddenly drop from beneath him,
and had been brought up breathlessly with a sudden jerk, was swinging
slowly to and fro, clinging with both hands to the rope, and trying
vainly to get a rest for his feet on the smooth wall of ice, over which
his toes glided whenever he could catch it; but this was not often, for
the ice receded, and in consequence he hung so clear, that the line
turned with him, and he was at times with his back to the side from
which the rope was strained, gazing at the dimly-seen opposite wall,
some six or seven feet away. Above was the over-arching snow, which
looked fragile in the extreme.
Far below him as he fell he heard the snow and ice he had broken away go
hissing and whispering down for what seemed long after he had dropped;
and this gave him some idea of the terrible depth of the ice crack, and
a cold chill, that was not caused by the icy coldness of the place, ran
through him, as he wondered whether the rope, which now looked thin and
worn, would hold. Then he thought that it might possibly cut against
the sharp edge, and after a sharp glance upward, to see nothing but the
blue sky, he could not keep from looking down into the black depths and
listening to the faint musical gurgle of running water.
He shuddered as he slowly turned, and then strained his ears to try and
make out what his companion and the guide were doing. But he could hear
nothing for some minutes. Then there was a vibration of the rope, and a
slight jerking sensation, and to his horror he found that he was being
lowered down.
Saxe was as brave as most boys of his years, but this was too much for
him. It struck him at first that he was being lowered; but the next
moment it seemed to be so much without reason that he jumped to the
conclusion that the rope was slowly unravelling and coming to pieces.
An absurd notion, but in the supreme moments of great danger people
sometimes think wild things.
He was just in the agony of this imagination, when the small patch of
light twenty feet above him was darkened, and he saw the head and
shoulders of Melchior, as the man, trusting to the strain upon the rope
maintained by Dale, leaned forward.
"Can you help yourself at all?" he said quietly.
"No, no!" cried Saxe hoarsely.
"Be cool, my lad," said Melchior. "I shall drive the head of my axe
into the ice, and leave the handle so that you can grasp it when you are
drawn up."
Saxe made no reply, but he heard a dull sound, and directly after the
rope began to move, and he knew by the jerks that it was being hauled in
hand-over-hand by the guide.
A minute later, and the lad's head was level with the snow, and he saw
the handle of the ice-axe, which he grasped. But it was almost
needless, for Melchior caught him by the portion of the rope which was
round his chest, and by a quick exercise of his great strength raised
him right out of the crevasse, to stand trembling there, as Dale now ran
up and grasped his hand.
"Saxe, my boy! What an escape!"
"Oh no," said the guide quickly. "It was nothing. The rope is good and
strong, and all we had to do was to draw him out. It would have been
dangerous for one man--he would have died--but we are three, and we help
each other; so it is nothing."
The two travellers exchanged glances, wondering at the man's coolness;
but they were given no time to think, for Melchior quickly examined the
knots of the rope which secured it about Saxe's chest, and strode on
again, so that they were obliged to follow.
A few minutes later they had reached the rocky side of the glacier
valley, and a stiff ascent was before them. Here they found more than
ever the value of their guide, for his climbing powers seemed almost
marvellous, while almost by instinct he selected the easiest route.
But the easiest was very hard, and every now and then he threw himself
back against the rock in difficult places, planted his feet firmly wide
apart, and steadily hauled upon the rope, making the ascent of the
others much more facile than it would have been.
This was repeated again and again till they had reached the top of the
ridge, which had seemed the summit from below on the ice; but here a
fresh slope met their eyes, and Melchior made straight for a rift which
ran up into the mountain, and, being full of snow, looked at a distance
like a waterfall.
"We will go up this couloir," he said; "it will be the best, and it will
give the young herr his first lesson in climbing snow."
"But we have been climbing snow," said Saxe, whose trepidation had now
passed off, and who was feeling once more himself.
"Walking upon it," said the guide, smiling; "not climbing."
"Rather a steep bit, isn't it, Melchior?" said Dale, looking upward.
"Yes, it is steep; but we can do it, and if we slip it will only be a
glissade down here again. The rocks are harder to climb, and a slip
there would be bad; besides, the stones fall here sometimes rather
thickly."
"But they'll be worse down that couloir," said Dale.
"As bad--not worse, herr; but I will go which way you like."
"Go the best way," said Dale quietly.
Melchior nodded, and strode on at once for the foot of the narrow rift,
which looked like a gully or shoot, down which the snow fell from above.
"Use my steps," he said quietly; and, with the rope still attached, he
began to ascend, kicking his feet into the soft snow as he went on, and
sending it flying and rushing down, sparkling in the sunshine, while the
others followed his zigzag track with care. There were times when the
foothold gave way, but there was no element of danger in the ascent,
which did not prove to be so steep as it had looked before it was
attacked. But the ascent was long, and the couloir curved round as they
climbed higher, displaying a fresh length of ascent invisible from
below.
As they turned the corner Melchior paused for them to look about them,
and upward toward where the gully ended in a large field of snow, above
and beyond which was steeply scarped mountain, rising higher and higher
toward a distant snowy peak.
"But we are not going right up that mountain, are we?" cried Saxe,
panting and breathless.
"Not to-day," replied the guide. "No: up to the snow yonder, and along
its edge for a little way, and then we descend on the other side, where
it will be all downward to Andregg's chalet. Hah! Down close! Quick!"
He set the example, flinging himself upon his face and extending his
hands above his head, as a whizzing sound was heard; then a dull thud or
two and directly after there was a crash on the rocky side of the
couloir a few feet above their heads, followed by a shower of slaty
fragments which fell upon them, while a great fragment, which had become
detached far above, glanced off, struck the other side of the gully, and
then went downward, ploughing up the snow.
"Take care!" again cried the guide. "No," he said directly after, "it
is only a few bits."
The few consisted of what might easily have been a cartload of snow,
which passed them with a rush, fortunately on the opposite side of the
gully.
"I say, Mr Dale," said Saxe, rather nervously, "if that piece of slate
had hit either of us--"
"Hah!" ejaculated Dale, drawing in his breath with a hiss, "if it had
hit us--"
They neither of them finished their sentence; and just then Melchior
started once more, lessening the difficulty of the ascent by zigzagging
the way.
Snow was dislodged, and went gliding down the gully, and for a moment a
great patch began to slide, taking Dale with it, but a few rapid leaps
carried him beyond it; and tightening the rope as soon as he had reached
a firm place, Saxe was able to pick his way after the snow had gone by
him with a rush, but only to stop a little lower down.
Another climb of about a quarter of an hour's duration brought them to
the edge of the field of snow, which Melchior examined pretty carefully,
and ended by rejecting in favour of a rugged ridge of rocks, which they
had hardly reached when there was a quick roar like thunder, and the
guide cried sharply--
"Look!"
He pointed upward toward the snow peaks, which seemed to be a couple of
miles away; and as they followed the direction of his pointing hand,
toward quite a chaos of rock and ice to their left, and about half-way
to the summit, they looked in vain, till Dale cried--
"There it is!"
"Yes: what?" cried Saxe eagerly. "Oh, I see: that little waterfall!"
For far away there was the semblance of a cascade, pouring over the edge
of a black rock, and falling what seemed to be a hundred feet into a
hollow, glittering brilliantly the while in the sun.
They watched it for about five minutes; and then, to Saxe's surprise,
the fall ceased, but the deep rushing noise, as of water, was still
heard, and suddenly the torrent seemed to gush out below, to the left,
and go on again fiercer than ever, but once more to disappear and
reappear again and again, till it made one bold leap into a hollow,
which apparently communicated with the glacier they had left.
"Hah!" ejaculated Saxe, "it was very beautiful, but--Why, that must have
been snow! Was that an avalanche?"
"Yes; didn't you understand? That is one of the ice-falls that are
always coming down from above."
"I didn't take it," said Saxe. "Well, it was very pretty, but not much
of it. I should like to see a big one."
Dale looked at Melchior, and smiled.
"He does not grasp the size of things yet," he said. "Why, Saxe, my
lad, you heard the clap like thunder when the fall first took place?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then don't you grasp that what looked like a cascade tumbling down was
hundreds of tons of hard ice and snow in large fragments? Hark! there
goes another."
There was a deeper-toned roar now, and they stood looking up once more,
with Saxe troubled by a feeling of awe, as the noise came rumbling and
echoing to where they stood.
"That must have been a huge mass down," said Dale at last, after they
had looked up in vain, expecting some visible token of the avalanche.
"Yes, herr: away over that ridge. The snow falls at this time of the
day. We shall not see any of that one. Shall we go on!"
"No, no!" cried Saxe excitedly, "I want to see another one come down.
But did you mean there were hundreds of tons in that first one, that
looked like water?"
"Oh yes--perhaps much more," said Dale. "That fall was a couple of
miles away."
"Here, let's go on, sir," said Saxe, who seemed to have changed his mind
very suddenly. "It all puzzles me. I dare say I'm very stupid, but I
can't understand it. Perhaps I shall be better after a time."
"It is more than any one can understand, Saxe," said Dale quietly; "and
yet, while it is grand beyond imagination, all the scheme of these
mountains, with their ice and snow, is gloriously simple. Yes," he
added, with a nod to Melchior, "go on," and an arduous climb followed
along the ridge of rocks, while the sun was reflected with a painful
glare from the snowfield on their left, a gloriously soft curve of
perhaps great depth kept from gliding down into the gorge below by the
ridge of rocks along which they climbed.
The way was safe enough, save here and there, when Melchior led them
along a ledge from which the slope down was so steep as to be almost a
precipice. But here he always paused and drew in the rope till those in
his charge were close up to him; and on one of these occasions he patted
Saxe on the shoulder, for there had been a narrow piece of about fifty
feet in length that looked worse at a glance back than in the passing.
"That was good," he said. "Some grown men who call themselves climbers
would have hung back from coming."
"That?" said Saxe. "Yes, I suppose it is dangerous, but it didn't seem
so then. I didn't think about it, as you and Mr Dale walked so quietly
across."
"It's the thinking about it is the danger," said Dale quietly.
"Imagination makes men cowards. But I'm glad you've got such a steady
head, Saxe."
"But I haven't, sir, for I was horribly frightened when I hung at the
end of that rope down in the crevasse."
"You will not be again," said Melchior coolly, for they were now on a
slope where the walking was comparatively easy, and they could keep
together. "The first time I slipped into one I, too, was terribly
frightened. Now I never think of anything but the rope cutting into my
chest and hurting me, and of how soon I can get hold somewhere to ease
the strain."
"What!" cried Saxe, staring at the man's cool, matter-of-fact way of
treating such an accident, "do you mean to say I shall ever get to think
nothing of such a thing as that?"
"Oh yes," said Melchior quietly.
"Oh, well, I don't think so," said Saxe. "Oh no. I shall get not to
mind walking along precipices, I dare say, but those crevasses--ugh!"
"The young herr will make a fine mountaineer, I am sure," said Melchior.
"I ought to know. Along here," he added; and, after a few minutes, he
stopped at what was quite a jagged rift in the mountain side.
"There is an awkward bit here, herr," he said, "but it will cut off half
an hour's hard walking."
"Down there?" said Saxe, after a glance. "Oh, I say!"
"It is an ugly bit, certainly," said Dale, looking at the guide.
"With a little care it is nothing," said Melchior. "The herr will go
down first. He has only to mind where he plants his feet. When he
reaches that ledge he will stop till we join him."
As Melchior spoke he unfastened the rope from Dale's breast and placed
the end from his own breast there instead; after which he set himself in
a good position by the edge.
"Hadn't we better get the youngster down first?"
"No, herr, you are heavy, and if you slip he can help me to hold you.
We can do it easily. Then you will untie yourself, and I can let him
down."
"And what then?" cried Saxe merrily, to conceal a feeling of uneasiness
at the awkward descent before him. "Are we to come up again and let you
down?"
"The young herr speaks like a gentleman Irlandais who was with me last
year. He made John Bulls, his friend said."
"Irish bulls, Melchior," said Dale, smiling.
"Ah, yes, the herr is right, they were Irish bulls; but I do not quite
know. Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Dale, preparing to descend the precipitous piece.
"Better keep your face to the rock here, herr. Go on. Take hold here,
young friend. That's it. The rope just touching, and the hands ready
to tighten at the slightest slip. Confidence, herr. But I need not
speak. You can climb."
Dale reached the ledge below without a slip, unfastened the end of the
rope, and Melchior began to attach it to Saxe.
"But, I say," cried the latter, "how can you get down?"
"There?" said the guide, with a little laugh. "Oh, that is not hard
climbing: I can easily get down there."
"I wish I could without thinking it was terrible," said Saxe to himself,
as he prepared in turn to descend, for in spite of the confidence given
by the rope about his chest, he found himself fancying that if the knot
came undone by the jerk he should give it if he slipped from one of
those awkward pieces of stone, he would go on falling and bounding from
rock to rock till he lay bruised and cut, perhaps killed, at the bottom
of the mountain.
"It's no good to stop thinking about it," he muttered; and lowering
himself down, he began to descend steadily, with the feeling of dread
passing off directly he had started; for the excitement of the work, and
the energy that he had to bring to bear in lowering himself from ledge
to ledge, kept him too busy to think of anything but the task in hand;
so that, in what seemed to be an incredibly short space of time, he was
standing beside Dale.
Then came a warning cry from Melchior, who threw down his end of the
rope, and directly after began to descend with an ease that robbed his
task of all aspect of danger. Every movement was so quietly and easily
made, there was such an elasticity of muscle and absence of strain, that
before the man was half down, both Dale and Saxe were wondering how they
could have thought so much of the task, and on Melchior joining them,
and after descending a little farther, roping them for other steep bits,
they went on easily and well.
And now for about a couple of hours Melchior took them on rapidly down
and down and in and out among bluffs and mountain spurs which he seemed
to know by heart, though to those with him the place grew more
perplexing at every turn. There was a gloomy look, too, now, in the
depths of the various gorges, which told of the coming of evening,
though the various peaks were blazing with orange and gold, and a
refulgent hue overspread the western sky.
"Is it much farther?" said Saxe at last. "I am getting so hungry, I can
hardly get one leg before the other."
"Farther!" said Melchior, smiling. "Do you not see? Up there to the
right is the foot of the glacier; there is the hill from which you saw
the top, and yonder is the patch of forest. Andregg's chalet is just
below."
"I am glad!" cried Saxe. "I thought I was hungry, but it's tired I am.
I shall be too weary to eat."
"Oh no!" said Melchior. "The young herr will eat, and then he will
sleep as we sleep here in these mountains, and wake in the morning ready
for another day. The herr still wants to hunt for crystals?" he added,
glancing at Dale.
"Yes; if you can take me to them," said the latter eagerly.
"I will try, herr; but they have to be sought in the highest solitudes,
on the edge of the precipices, where it is too steep for the snow to
stay, and they say that there are spirits and evil demons guarding the
caverns where they lie."
"And do you believe them?" said Saxe sturdily.
"The young herr shall see," replied the guide. "Ah! there is Andregg.
The cows have just been brought home, and here come the goats. I heard
the cry in the mountains. We shall have bread and milk and cheese, if
we have nothing else. Do I believe that about the demons who guard the
crystal caves?" he continued thoughtfully. "Well, the young herr shall
see. Hoi! hola, Andregg! I bring you friends!" he shouted to a
grey-haired man standing in the evening twilight, which was declining
fast, just outside the plain brown pine-wood chalet, with two women and
a boy leisurely milking cows and goats.
"The herrs are welcome," said the man gravely. "It has been fine among
the mountains to-day. I was fearing we should have a storm."