Read Ebook: Rivers of Ice by Ballantyne R M Robert Michael

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Ebook has 567 lines and 36699 words, and 12 pages

underous roar of Alpine artillery, until it died slowly away--as if unwillingly-- in the light pattering of pebbles.

Gratitude to the Almighty for deliverance from a great danger was the strongest feeling in the heart of the chamois-hunter. Profound astonishment and joy at having witnessed such an amazing sight, quickened the pulse of Lewis.

"That was a narrow escape, Le Croix?"

"It was. I never see such a sight without a shudder, because I lost a brother in such an avalanche. It was on the slopes of the Jungfrau. He was literally broken to fragments by it."

Lewis expressed sympathy, and his feelings were somewhat solemnised by the graphic recital of the details of the sad incident with which the hunter entertained him, as they descended the mountain rapidly.

In order to escape an impending storm, which was evidently brewing in the clouds above, Lewis suggested that they should diverge from the route by which they had ascended, and attempt a short cut by a steeper part of the mountains.

Le Croix looked round and pondered. "I don't like diverging into unknown parts when in a hurry, and with the day far spent," he said. "One never knows when a sheer precipice will shut up the way in places like this."

The youth, however, was confident, and the man of experience was too amiable and yielding. There was also urgent reason for haste. It was therefore decided that the steeper slopes should be attempted.

They began with a glissade. A very steep snow-slope happened to be close at hand. It stretched uninterruptedly down several hundred feet to one of the terraces, into which the precipitous mountainside at that place was cut.

"Will you try?" asked Le Croix, looking doubtfully at his companion.

"Of course I will," replied Lewis, shortly. "Where you choose to go I will follow."

"Have you ever done such work before?"

"Yes, often, though never on quite so steep or long a slope."

Le Croix was apparently satisfied. He sat down on the summit of the slope, fixed the spiked end of his axe in the snow, resting heavily on the handle, in order to check his descent, and hitched himself forward.

"Keep steady and don't roll over," he cried, as he shot away. The snow rose and trailed like a white tail behind him. His speed increased almost to that of an avalanche, and in a few seconds he was at the bottom.

Lewis seated himself in precisely the same manner, but overbalanced himself when halfway down, swung round, lost self-command, let slip his axe, and finally went head over heels, with legs and arms flying wildly.

Le Croix, half-expecting something of the kind, was prepared. He had re-ascended the slope a short way, and received the human avalanche on his right shoulder, was knocked down violently as a matter of course, and the two went spinning in a heap together to the bottom.

"Not hurt, I hope?" cried Lewis, jumping up and looking at his comrade with some anxiety.

"No, Monsieur," replied Le Croix, quietly, as he shook the snow from his garments--"And you?"

"Oh! I'm all right. That was a splendid beginning. We shall get down to our cave in no time at this rate."

The hunter shook his head. "It is not all glissading," he said, as they continued the descent by clambering down the face of a precipice.

Some thousands of feet below them lay the tortuous surface of a glacier, on which they hoped to be able to walk towards their intended night-bivouac, but the cliffs leading to this grew steeper as they proceeded. Some hours' work was before them ere the glacier could be reached, and the day was already drawing towards its close. A feeling of anxiety kept them both silent as they pushed on with the utmost possible speed, save when it was necessary for one to direct the other as to his foothold.

On gaining each successive ledge of the terraced hill-side, they walked along it in the hope of reaching better ground, or another snow-slope; but each ledge ended in a precipice, so that there was no resource left but to scramble down to the ledge below to find a similar disappointment. The slopes also increased, rather than decreased, in steepness, yet so gradually, that the mountaineers at last went dropping from point to point down the sheer cliffs without fully realising the danger of their position. At a certain point they came to the head of a slope so steep, that the snow had been unable to lie on it, and it was impossible to glissade on the pure ice. It was quite possible, however, to cut foot-holes down. Le Croix had with him a stout Manilla rope of about three hundred feet in length. With this tied round his waist, and Lewis, firmly planted, holding on to it, he commenced the staircase. Two blows sufficed for each step, yet two hours were consumed before the work was finished. Re-ascending, he tied the rope round Lewis, and thus enabled him to descend with a degree of confidence which he could not have felt if unattached. Le Croix himself descended without this moral support, but, being as sure-footed as a chamois, it mattered little.

Pretty well exhausted by their exertions, they now found themselves at the summit of a precipice so perpendicular and unbroken, that a single glance sufficed to convince them of the utter impossibility of further descent in that quarter. The ledge on which they stood was not more than three feet broad. Below them the glacier appeared in the fading light to be as far off as ever. Above, the cliffs frowned like inaccessible battlements. They were indeed like flies clinging to a wall, and, to add to their difficulties, the storm which had threatened now began in earnest.

A cloud as black as pitch hung in front of them. Suddenly, from its heart, there gushed a blinding flash of lightning, followed, almost without interval, by a crash of thunder. The echoes took up the sounds, hurling them back and forward among the cliffs as if cyclopean mountain spirits were playing tennis with boulders. Rain also descended in torrents, and for some time the whole scene became as dark as if overspread with the wing of night.

Crouching under a slight projection of rock, the explorers remained until the first fury of the squall was over. Fortunately, it was as short-lived as violent, but its effects were disagreeable, for cataracts now poured on them as they hurried along the top of the precipice vainly looking for a way of escape. At last, on coming to one of those checks which had so often met them that day, Le Croix turned and said--

"There is no help for it, Monsieur, we must spend the night here."

"Here!" exclaimed Lewis, glancing at the cliffs above and the gulf below.

"It is not a pleasant resting-place," replied the hunter, with a sad smile, "but we cannot go on. It will be quite dark in half an hour, when an effort to advance would insure our destruction. The little light that remains must be spent in seeking out a place to lie on."

The two men, who were thrown thus together in such perilous circumstances, were possessed of more than average courage, yet it would be false to say that fear found no place in their breasts. On the contrary, each confessed to the other the following day that his heart had sunk within him as he thought of the tremendous cliffs against which they were stuck, with descent and ascent equally impossible, a narrow ledge on the precipice-edge for their bed, and a long, wild night before them. Cowardice does not consist in simple fear. It consists in the fear of trifles; in unreasonable fear, and in such fear as incapacitates a man for action. The situation of our explorers was not one of slight danger. They had the best of reason for anxiety, because they knew not whether escape, even in daylight, were possible. As to incapacity for action, the best proof that fear had not brought them to that condition lay in the fact, that they set about preparations for spending the night with a degree of vigour amounting almost to cheerfulness.

After the most careful survey, only one spot was found wider than the rest of the ledge, and it was not more than four feet wide, the difference being caused by a slight hollow under the rock, which thus might overhang them--one of them at least--and form a sensation of canopy. At its best, a bed only four feet wide is esteemed narrow enough for one, and quite inadequate for two, but when it is considered that the bed now selected was of hard granite, rather round-backed than flat, with a sheer precipice descending a thousand feet, more or less, on one side of it, and a slope in that direction, there will be no difficulty in conceiving something of the state of mind in which Lewis Stoutley and Baptist Le Croix lay down to repose till morning in wet garments, with the thermometer somewhere between thirty-two and zero, Fahrenheit.

To prevent their rolling off the ledge when asleep, they built on the edge of the cliff a wall of the largest loose stones they could find. It was but an imaginary protection at best, for the slightest push sent some of the stones toppling over, and it necessarily curtailed the available space. No provisions, save one small piece of bread, had been brought, as they had intended returning to their cave to feast luxuriously. Having eaten the bread, they prepared to lie down.

It was agreed that only one at a time should sleep; the other was to remain awake, to prevent the sleeper from inadvertently moving. It was also arranged, that he whose turn it was to sleep should lie on the inner side. But here arose a difference. Le Croix insisted that Lewis should have the first sleep. Lewis, on the other hand, declared that he was not sleepy; that the attempt to sleep would only waste the time of both, and that therefore Le Croix should have the first.

The contention was pretty sharp for a time, but the obstinacy of the Englishman prevailed. The hunter gave in, and at once lay down straight out with his face to the cliff, and as close to it as he could squeeze. Lewis immediately lay down outside of him, and, throwing one arm over his Lecroix's broad chest gave him a half-jocular hug that a bear might have enjoyed, and told him to go to sleep. In doing this he dislodged a stone from the outer wall, which went clattering down into the dark gulf.

Almost immediately the deep, regular breathing of the wearied hunter told that he was already in the land of Nod.

It was a strange, romantic position; and Lewis rejoiced, in the midst of his anxieties, as he lay there wakefully guarding the chamois-hunter while he slept. It appeared to Lewis that his companion felt the need of a guardian, for he grasped with both hands the arm which he had thrown round him.

Uttering a loud cry of alarm he sought to start up, and in so doing sent three-quarters of the protecting wall down the precipice with an appalling rush and rumble. Unquestionably he would have followed it if he had not been held by the wrist as if by a vice!

"Hallo! take care, Monsieur," cried Le Croix, in a quick anxious tone, still holding tightly to his companion's arm.

"Why! what? Le Croix--I saw--I--I--saw--Well, well--I do really believe I have been--I'm ashamed to say--"

"Yes, Monsieur, you've been asleep," said the hunter, with a quiet laugh, gently letting go his hold of the arm as he became fully persuaded that Lewis was by that time quite awake and able to take care of himself.

"Have you been asleep too?" asked Lewis.

"Truly, no!" replied the hunter, rising with care, "but you have had full three hours of it, so it's my turn now."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Lewis.

"Indeed I do; and now, please, get next the cliff and let me lie outside, so that I may rest with an easy mind."

Lewis opposed him no longer. He rose, and they both stood up to stamp their feet and belabour their chests for some time--the cold at such a height being intense, while their wet garments and want of covering rendered them peculiarly unfitted to withstand it. The effort was not very successful. The darkness of the night, the narrowness of their ledge, and the sleepiness of their spirits rendering extreme caution necessary.

At last the languid blood began to flow; a moderate degree of warmth was restored, and, lying down again side by side in the new position, the hunter and the student sought and found repose.

DANGER AND DEATH ON THE GLACIER.

Daylight--blessed daylight! How often longed for by the sick and weary! How imperfectly appreciated by those whose chief thoughts and experiences of night are fitly expressed by the couplet:--

"Bed, bed, delicious bed, Haven of rest for the weary head."

Daylight came at last, to the intense relief of poor Lewis, who had become restless as the interminable night wore on, and the cold seemed to penetrate to his very marrow. Although unable to sleep, however, he lay perfectly still, being anxious not to interrupt the rest of his companion. But Le Croix, like the other, did not sleep soundly; he awoke several times, and, towards morning, began to dream and mutter short sentences.

At first Lewis paid no attention to this, but at length, becoming weary of his own thoughts, he set himself with a half-amused feeling to listen. The amusement gave place to surprise and to a touch of sadness when he found that the word `gold' frequently dropped from the sleeper's lips.

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