Perfectly simple to arrange, but very difficult to practise. For
instance, they had to toil on quite a mile before the narrow crack,
which formed the bed of a streamlet, offered itself as a way out of the
glacier valley.
"I'm afraid this will be an awkward climb, Saxe," said Dale. "What do
you say? Will you face the hard work?"
"Oh yes!" he cried. "It's better than going the same way back."
"Up you go, then."
Saxe went on, now on one side of the tiny stream, now on the other, the
sides rising right and left almost perpendicularly at times. But there
was plenty of good foot and hand-hold, so that Saxe made his way onward
and upward at a fair rate for mountaineering, and in a very short time
they had taken a last look of the glacier; the narrow rift, turned
almost at right angles, growing blacker and more forbidding in aspect at
every step.
"I don't believe there is any way out here!" cried Saxe at last. "It
gets deeper and darker, as if it were a cut right into the mountain."
He had paused to rest as he spoke, and the gurgling of the little stream
down a crack far below mingled with his words.
"Well, let's go a little farther first," said Dale. "I am beginning to
think it is going to be a cul de sac."
He looked up to right and left at the walls of black rock growing higher
the farther they went, and now quite made up his mind that there would
be no exit from the gorge; but all the same, it had a peculiar
fascination for both, from its seeming to be a place where the foot of
man had never before trod, and the possibility of their making some
discovery deep in among the black rocks of the weird chasm.
"Tired? Shall we turn back?" said Dale from time to time.
"Oh no! let's go a little farther. This ought to be the sort of place
to find crystals, oughtn't it?"
"I can't give you any information, my lad, about that; only that I have
seen no sign of any. Say when you want to turn back."
"All right. Oh! look here!"
The chasm had made another turn, and as Saxe spoke he climbed on a
little farther, so as to make room for his companion to join him among
the fragments of broken rock upon which he stood. And there, right
before them, the walls seemed to run together in the side of a black
mass of rock, which formed the base of a snowy peak, one which they
recognised as having often seen, and now looking the more brilliant in
contrast with the black rock from which it rose.
"We could get there in another quarter of an hour," said Saxe.
"Yes; but what good shall we do when we get there?" replied Dale. "You
see that the rocks to right and left are not to be scaled, or that this
place ends in a mere gash or split."
"But you never know till you get close up," said Saxe. "The rocks fold
over one another; so that we may after all find a way out and over the
mountain."
"Well, if you are not too tired we'll try. This stream must come from
somewhere. Hear it?"
"Yes, I can hear," said Saxe, as he listened to the strange musical
gurgle of running waters somewhere far down below the blocks which had
fallen from the sides of the chasm.
He started on climbing from stone to stone--some planted solidly, others
so nearly poised that they rocked beneath his feet.
"One good thing," he cried breathlessly: "you can't fall any lower. How
narrow the place is!"
It grew narrower still before they reached the spot where the place
ended in the cleft in the face of the black rock; but, just as the boy
had said, there was a fold of the chasm, quite a knife-edge of stone
round, and beyond which the stream came gurgling down, and apparently
going directly upward to the right.
"There!" cried Saxe. "What did I tell you? This is the way up. Shall
I go on?"
"Yes, a little way; but I did not reckon on these difficulties. We will
only explore a little to-day. To-morrow we can come straight here
earlier, and take our time."
The place was narrower than ever now, and the rocks rose
perpendicularly, so high that the place was almost in twilight. It was
nearly a repetition of the chasm up which they had come, save that one
side was the mountain itself, the other a portion split off.
The mountain side proving the easier, as the stones in the bottom grew
more massive and difficult to climb, the boy took to the slope, and made
such rapid progress that Dale was left behind; and he was about to shout
to Saxe not to hurry, when he saw that the boy was waiting some eighty
or ninety yards in advance, and high up above the bottom of the gorge
along which Dale had proceeded in a slower and surer way.
Dale went on till he was right below the boy, and then stopped to wipe
his forehead.
"Let's get back, Saxe," he said: "there may be traces of this narrow
crack going right round the mountain. Ready?"
There was no answer.
"Saxe!"
"Yes," rather hoarsely.
"Come down now, and let's go back."
There was again no answer.
"Why don't you come down?" said Dale.
"I--I'll come down directly."
"Curious place--very curious place!" said Dale, looking about him at the
solid walls of rock. "I shouldn't wonder if we came upon crevices
similar to those which we found lower down in the sides of the glacier:
perhaps we may hit upon a cavern that we can explore. I must bring
Melchior up here: he has a nose like a dog for holes of that kind."
He stood peering here and there with his back to Saxe, and did not turn
for a few minutes. When at last he did, he saw that the boy was in
precisely the same position.
"Why, Saxe, my lad," he said, "what are you doing? Why don't you come
down?"
The lad turned his head very slowly till he could look down, and fixed
his eyes upon his companion in a peculiar, wild way.
"What's the matter?--Giddy?"
"No."
"Come down, then."
"I--can't," said the boy slowly.
"Then climb on a little farther, and come down there."
"No: I can't move."
"Nonsense. This isn't a loadstone mountain, and you're not iron. Come
down."
"I--I did try," said Saxe; "but I had to make a jump to get here, and I
can't jump back: there's nothing to take hold of."
Dale scanned the position anxiously, seeing now for the first time that
the rough angles and ridge-like pieces of rock along which the boy had
made his way ceased about five feet from where he stood, and that he
must have jumped on to a narrow piece of stone not a foot long and
somewhere about a third of that width; and though, in the vast chasm in
which they both were, the height above him, where Saxe was
spread-eagled, as it were, against the perpendicular rock, looked
perfectly insignificant, he was close upon a hundred feet up, and a fall
would have been very serious, if not fatal.
"You foolish fellow!" Dale said cheerfully, so as not to alarm him at a
time when he seemed to have quite lost his nerve: "pretty mess to get
yourself in! Fortunately I have the rope."
As Dale spoke he looked about wildly for some means of utilising that
rope; but he could see none.
"Why did you go up there instead of keeping down here?"
"I thought I saw an opening here," said Saxe; "and there is one big
enough to creep in. I am holding by the side of it now, or I should go
down."
"Then go on holding by the side," said Dale cheerily, though his face
was working; and then, to take the boy's attention from his perilous
position, "Not a crystal cave, is it?"
"Yes. I felt big crystals inside: I am holding on by one."
"Bravo! Well done, boy; but you are making yourself a front door."
"Don't--don't laugh at me, Mr Dale," said Saxe piteously. "It is very
hard work to hold on."
"I'm not laughing at you, Saxe, my boy: only saying a word to cheer you
up. You haven't got a crevasse under you, and if the worst came I
should have to catch you. Now, let's see: here's a ledge away to your
right; but it's too far for you to leap, and there is nothing to catch
hold of. If I got the rope up to you, you could fasten it somewhere and
slide down."
"Fasten it? To what?"
"Ay?--to what?" said Dale to himself. Then aloud: "You haven't a very
good hold there, have you?"
"No--dreadful," came faintly.
"I say, boy; don't take that tone. Mountaineers are people full of
resources. You say you have an opening behind you?"
"Yes."
"Then can you hold on with one hand?"
"I--I think so."
"Think! Say yes!" shouted Dale angrily. "Now, hold on with one hand."
"Yes."
"Where's your ice-axe?"
"I--I had forgotten that."
"I can see that, sir. Now put your hand behind you and pull it
carefully out of your belt. Steady! there is no hurry. Don't drop it."
Saxe passed his hand behind him, and gradually hitched the axe out from
where he had been carrying it like a sword while he climbed to the hole.
"That's better. Mind! Now push it into the hole and turn it across.
Can you?"
Saxe obeyed his instructor, and Dale saw that the opening was about the
level of the lad's waist, and evidently roomy--at least, amply large
inside for the axe to be crossed.
"Now you've got something better to hold on by, and can hook your arm
over it to rest your hand."
"Yes," cried Saxe, who was already doing this. "My hand was so horribly
cramped, and it seemed as if you would never come."
"Time always seems long when we are in trouble. Now then, do you feel
safer?"
"Oh yes," cried Saxe; and there was a complete change in his tone. "I
can hold on now."
"Of course you can. Pretty sort of an Alpine hand you are, to give up
without thinking of your tools!"
"Yes, I had forgotten my axe."
"You'll forget your head next, sir. Now, tell me: how am I to get the
rope up to you?"
"Can you throw it?"
"No, I can't; nor you neither. Now, if you had been carrying it instead
of me, how easy it would be! Of course you have not got that ball of
string with you?"
"No," said Saxe sadly.
"No one should travel without a knife and a bit of string in his pocket;
and yet, if you had a bit of string, it would not be long enough. Now,
what's to be done?"
"I don't know," cried Saxe.
"That shows you are only an apprentice at mountaineering yet. I do
know."
"You can see a way to get me down, sir?" said Saxe joyously.
"Yes: two ways. One is quick, short and dangerous."
"More dangerous than being as I am?"
"Yes, much; but for me, not you. The other will take longer, but it is
safe."
"Then try that way," said Saxe eagerly; for he had quite recovered his
nerve now, and would have been ready to jump to right or left had he
been told.
"No, my lad; you are tired, and in an awkward place. My second way
might fail too. It was to tear up my handkerchief and make it into a
string to throw up to you, so that you could afterwards draw up the
rope. No: my string might break. But I am as foolish as you are, and
as wanting in resource. There," he continued, after a few moments'
pause, "what a boaster I am! I did not even think of cutting a piece
off the rope, unravelling it, and making it into a string."
"Yes, you could easily make that into a string," said Saxe anxiously.
"No, that would be a pity," said Dale; "and a practised climber ought
not to think of such a thing. I ought," he said, scanning the rock
carefully, "to be able to get up there above you, fasten the rope to
some block, and then let it down to you."
"No, don't do that!" cried Saxe excitedly: "it is so easy to get up, and
so hard to get down."
"Not with a rope," said Dale cheerily. "Let's see. Suppose I join you
the way you came, and jump to you? Is there room for both?"
"No, no!" cried Saxe excitedly.
"Well, if I climb out to where you jumped, I can hand you the rope, you
can pass it round the ice-axe, and slip down with it double and then
draw it off. No: it is not long enough, and we should have to leave the
axe behind. I must climb above you, boy; so here goes."