Chapter Fifteen.Caught in a Trap.The mist on the mountain had not been without its meaning, and a heavy persistent rain kept them all the next day close in under the shelter of the rock, where the fire had to be lighted too, and after a great deal of difficulty this was accomplished by Melchior getting a few stout dead branches and bringing them under cover.These he whittled into shavings, and these shavings served to start the green pine boughs which had formed their beds; and once a pretty good glow was obtained, with plenty of embers, the wetness of the branches brought under cover mattered very little, especially as the guide ranged them close to the fire to dry, ready against they were required; and had contrived that the blinding smoke should sweep right out at once, a few broad branched boughs stuck in the ground or propped upright helping to establish a draught.The feeling of restfulness and the hot coffee were sufficient to make the first hour tolerable, in spite of the constant dripping of the trees and the rush of water down from the natural eaves of their shelter; but after a time it began to grow monotonous.The outlook was not extensive either, for beyond the thick driving rain the hollows were filled with dense mist, and the mountains around were quite invisible; and Saxe turned from gazing out between two little shoots of water to look rather appealingly at Dale.“What’s the matter, Saxe?” said the latter.“It’s so horribly wet.”“Well, it’s wet everywhere sometimes. Sit down near the fire and rest. You’ll be all the better for it when the rain is over.”“But it looks as if it never would be over.”“But it will be. There: help keep up the fire, and be patient. We can’t always be climbing.”“I say, look at that,” cried Saxe, laughing; for just then the mule, which had been grazing a short distance away, troubling itself not in the slightest degree about the rain, came slowly towards them, with its shaggy coat looking as if it had been oiled, and the water trickling from it in streams, as if it were a walking reservoir filled a little too full.It was evident that it considered the rain a little too heavy now, for it thrust its head under cover, and blinked for a few moments at the fire before giving itself a tremendous shake, sending the water flying from its ears, and then drooped them low down, as if holding them out to the fire to dry.In this position its head was in shelter, but the rain streamed down upon its back and hind quarters, while a perfect deluge, like that from a waterspout, ran down a long gully in the overhanging rock right on to the spine just between the shoulders, and there divided to trickle on either side down the fore legs, and then run down through the pine needles, which formed too thick a bed for any of the water to make a pool.To the surprise of all, the mule was perfectly satisfied so long as it could keep its head and ears in the warmth and shelter, and never once attempted to creep in nearer; and so another hour passed, only broken by the low murmur of Dale’s voice as he talked to the guide, and the plash and rush of water. For the dripping was drowned now by the enormous amount which fell, and this went on increasing till there was quite a heavy roar, as of many falls.“Is that anything?” said Saxe at last, as a low booming noise fell upon their ears—a sound which gradually increased.“A waterfall,” said Melchior. “The waters on the mountains are gathering together and plunging into the valley. Listen, and you can hear others,” he continued, as he held up his hand.From apparently close at hand what sounded like the echo of the first fall could be heard, and beyond that, farther away, another, and again another, and so on, fainter and fainter, till the whole valley seemed to be filled with the noise of rushing waters.It was somewhat awe-inspiring, and suggested the possibility of a great flood coming down upon them to sweep everything away; but at the hint of such a catastrophe Melchior shook his head.“Oh no,” he said. “If we were on the bank of a big stream that might be, and we should have to climb up to a place of safety; but here the waters divide a hundred ways, and will never reach us. Hah!—snow.”He held up his hand as a rushing noise was heard somewhere high up among the dense mists. This rapidly increased to a terrific roar, followed by a deep booming crash; and so tremendous was the sound, that the noise of the falling waters seemed for the moment to be hushed. Then the thunderous crash rolled right away among the mountains, dying in faint echoes, and the rush of the waterfalls filled the air once more.“A heavy avalanche, Melchior,” said Dale.“Yes, herr; there is a great deal of snow up in the mountains, and this will make more.”“What, this rain?” said Saxe.“It is snow a thousand feet up, herr. When the clouds pass away you will see.”Melchior’s words were correct, for toward evening the rain ceased quite suddenly, and the sun broke through the mists, which rolled their way up the mountain sides as if to reach the snow peaks. And all the lower slopes were now powdered with newly fallen snow, where they had been green on the previous day.Every tiny-looking cascade had been turned into a furious torrent, whose waters came leaping and bounding down from far on high, one running into another, till the last was vastly swollen and plunged into the valley, to turn its stream into quite a large river for a few hours.“Well?” said Dale, inquiringly, as he returned with Saxe from watching the rush of waters and the beauty of the fresh snow.“Well, herr?” said the guide quietly.“What do you think? Could we start back now and get to Andregg’s chalet to-night?”“It is not impossible, herr; but the walking would be slippery and bad, every stream so swollen that they would be dangerous to wade, and the distance is so great that—”“Well, go on. Why do you stop?”“I had forgotten the schlucht, herr. We could not get through there. It would be terribly swollen. The water is close up to or over the path, and— No, I should not like to be answerable for your safety. No, herr, we must wait till to-morrow.”“But we shall not have enough to eat,” said Saxe.“Plenty, though only simple,” said Dale, smiling. “Come, Saxe, that’s not like talking like a mountaineer. To-morrow morning, then: will that do, Melchior?”“I think so, herr. I am sure about our way to the mouth of the schlucht. Then we can see.”The morning dawned with the different falls wonderfully reduced; and after a breakfast that was exactly what Dale had said overnight, an early start was made, so that they were well on their way by the time that the sun began to tinge the tops of the mountains, which, seen now from a different point of view, seemed more beautiful than before.Then by degrees the various familiar parts came into sight, till they neared and descended into the open valley along which the river ran, and at last came to a halt close to the mouth of the gorge, where the fount gushed down and joined the water at their feet.The horror and dread they had felt came back to their memories as they gazed down at the murky stream, rushing furiously along, now evidently many feet deeper than when they had passed that way; and Melchior drew their attention to the fact that it must have been much higher up the rocks on the previous day.“What do you think of it?” asked Dale.“There is a great deal of water, herr; but I think the path will be all clear. Now it is so full, the water will flow more quietly.”“But the mule: do you think you can get it through?”“Oh yes, herr.”“But suppose it falls from one of these narrow places?” said Saxe excitedly.“Oh, then we should have to go back and get it ashore, and try again, herr. Gros knows the way by water.”“But surely that animal will never get through, Melchior?”“Oh yes, herr. Certainly he has no hands, but his feet are as true, or truer, than a man’s. You will see he will get through. And I shall carry the basket; it is light now. You see I can shift it as I like,—he cannot.”“Well, you know best,” said Dale. “How do you feel for the journey, Saxe?”“Don’t like it,” said the lad bluntly, “but I’m ready. It isn’t so bad as what we did up the mountain.”“No: you are getting your head, my boy, fast. Ready, Melchior?”“Yes, unless the herr likes to sit down and rest for half an hour first.”“By no means,” cried Dale. “We should be thinking of the ugly bit of work we have to do—eh, Saxe?”“Yes, let’s go on at once, please. I don’t like waiting.”“How shall you go—leading the mule or driving it?” asked Dale.“Neither, herr. I shall tell him to go on, and he will lead us.”The guide shouldered the basket, which was somewhat lightened by Dale and Saxe each taking out some of their belongings and slinging them on by straps. Then Melchior led the mule down to the ledge at the opening, said a few encouraging words, and waited.The mule hesitated. The water was right over the track here, and the animal bent down, sniffed and pawed at it as if uneasy; but a few more words from Melchior made it go on a few steps very slowly, and continually trying its way, so as to get a good foothold before going on, and acting in a wonderfully human way by pressing itself very close to the rock.“I hardly think we ought to venture, Melchior,” said Dale.“Oh yes, herr. We know the extent of the danger. Gros swims like a dog, and you know he was none the worse for the last fall.”“Go on, then.”The mule was already going on. Finding the water more shallow on the ledge, it progressed with a little confidence, for the ledge eloped upward, and it could see the damp stone clear of the water a short distance on.“There, herr, you see,” said the guide, after they had waded with the water just over their boots to the clear stone ledge along which the mule went on steadily now, “there is nothing to mind here.”“I am glad you think so,” said Dale, shouting loudly, to make his voice heard beyond Saxe, who was between, and they were getting now within reach of the reverberating roar of the torrent.Saxe glanced down as they passed the angles and gradually entered the semi-darkness, and saw that the surface of the water was smoother, and that, as they passed the waves formed by the water being hurled against the opposing faces of the rock, there was less foam and turmoil; but these places looked, if anything, more terrible than before, and the water, as it surged up so much nearer his feet, looked to his excited vision as if stealthily writhing towards him to lap round his legs like some huge serpent, and snatch him down into the depths.Conversation was impossible, but the guide shouted a few words of encouragement to the mule, and from time to time waited for Saxe to come close up, when he shouted an inquiry or two in his ear.“Yes, all right,” cried Saxe, who gained encouragement from the calm matter-of-fact way in which the guide went on; while, just dimly-seen as the gorge curved and wound, the mule trudged on, twitching its ears and evidently caring nothing for the turmoil and rush just below.“I half wish he had proposed the rope, though,” thought Saxe, as they went on, with the various familiar parts seeming terrible enough, but very different to when he came through with the horrible feeling that Melchior was lost, and that at any moment they might see his body whirling round in one of the pools.These were not so striking now, for in most of the places, as he peered down through the gloom and mist, the water was above the overhanging, cavernous holes, and the peculiar eye-like aspect of the one particular spot which had fascinated him so deeply was entirely hidden.“It wasn’t such a very great thing, after all, for Melchior to do,” he thought, as they went on. “He has had plenty of practice, and had been before. I believe I could go through by myself.”“But I shouldn’t like to,” he added, after a few moments’ thought; for he had to go along more carefully, in obedience to a sign from Melchior, the rock being slippery as they descended lower in the part they had now reached, and it suddenly dawned upon him that the water must have been over where he stood not perhaps many hours before.It had the effect of coming up higher, and he was startled for the moment, fancying that the flood was rising; but he grew confident as he saw the mule clearly now, where the gorge wound off to the left and then turned again to the right, so that as the mule passed the corner and disappeared the water was only a few inches below its hoofs.Then Melchior passed round and out of sight, and Saxe’s own turn came, and he followed into one of the gloomiest parts of the rift. And here the ledge still descended slowly till the water began to wash over the path; then, as he looked anxiously forward, he could dimly see that at every step the water splashed beneath the animal’s hoofs, and the next minute it was standing still, with the guide close up behind.Saxe stopped short, after feeling his way for a step or two with the handle of his ice-axe, while he leaned a little against the steep wall; and Dale came up and touched his shoulder, bending down to shout in his ear.“I can’t see from here. Is the path more covered where they are?”“I don’t know,—I think so,” Saxe shouted back, his voice seeming to be swept away by the rushing noise that appeared to accompany the water as it hurried along.The guide’s figure was indistinct in the mist of spray, and the mule’s seemed lost in the rock, so similar were they in tone; but the spectators could just make out that Melchior was doing all he could short of blows to urge the mule on, and that it was stubbornly refusing to stir.“You must go on, or let me pass you, Saxe,” shouted Dale: “I want to speak to the guide.”“It gets deeper here,” cried Saxe: “it’s over my ankles, and the water feels like ice.”“Never mind,—go on; keep as close to the wall as you can. Shall I get by you?”“No,” said Saxe stoutly; “I’ll try.”He waded along the shelf, with the water getting deeper still; and now he could feel the curious sensation of the rushing stream bearing against his legs, which were immersed half-way to his knees; and at every step he cautiously sounded, to make sure where he should plant his feet.Before he had gone many paces, Melchior had returned to meet him; and as Dale closed up the guide shouted:“I can’t get him along, sir, and I dare not make him restive by a blow.”“No, no—of course not. But the water?”“It is deeper farther on, herr—I think about a foot—and he will not move.”“It is impossible to back him, of course?”“Oh yes, herr; and he cannot turn.”“Then we must get by him and go on and leave him to follow.”“Impossible, herr,” yelled Melchior. “If we tried he might kick.”“Go and coax him.”“It is no use, herr. The poor beast is right. He says in his way that it is not safe to go on, and that we must wait.”“Wait in a place like this!” cried Dale. “The water is icy, and the noise deafening. Can you recollect how much the path goes down beyond the mule?”“I don’t think it goes down at all, herr.”“Then the water must be rising,” cried Dale excitedly; and the guide nodded.“We must not be caught in this terrible trap. I thought the water was sinking.”“It was, herr; but there must have been a fresh fall of rain at the other end of the lake, and it is rising now fast.”
The mist on the mountain had not been without its meaning, and a heavy persistent rain kept them all the next day close in under the shelter of the rock, where the fire had to be lighted too, and after a great deal of difficulty this was accomplished by Melchior getting a few stout dead branches and bringing them under cover.
These he whittled into shavings, and these shavings served to start the green pine boughs which had formed their beds; and once a pretty good glow was obtained, with plenty of embers, the wetness of the branches brought under cover mattered very little, especially as the guide ranged them close to the fire to dry, ready against they were required; and had contrived that the blinding smoke should sweep right out at once, a few broad branched boughs stuck in the ground or propped upright helping to establish a draught.
The feeling of restfulness and the hot coffee were sufficient to make the first hour tolerable, in spite of the constant dripping of the trees and the rush of water down from the natural eaves of their shelter; but after a time it began to grow monotonous.
The outlook was not extensive either, for beyond the thick driving rain the hollows were filled with dense mist, and the mountains around were quite invisible; and Saxe turned from gazing out between two little shoots of water to look rather appealingly at Dale.
“What’s the matter, Saxe?” said the latter.
“It’s so horribly wet.”
“Well, it’s wet everywhere sometimes. Sit down near the fire and rest. You’ll be all the better for it when the rain is over.”
“But it looks as if it never would be over.”
“But it will be. There: help keep up the fire, and be patient. We can’t always be climbing.”
“I say, look at that,” cried Saxe, laughing; for just then the mule, which had been grazing a short distance away, troubling itself not in the slightest degree about the rain, came slowly towards them, with its shaggy coat looking as if it had been oiled, and the water trickling from it in streams, as if it were a walking reservoir filled a little too full.
It was evident that it considered the rain a little too heavy now, for it thrust its head under cover, and blinked for a few moments at the fire before giving itself a tremendous shake, sending the water flying from its ears, and then drooped them low down, as if holding them out to the fire to dry.
In this position its head was in shelter, but the rain streamed down upon its back and hind quarters, while a perfect deluge, like that from a waterspout, ran down a long gully in the overhanging rock right on to the spine just between the shoulders, and there divided to trickle on either side down the fore legs, and then run down through the pine needles, which formed too thick a bed for any of the water to make a pool.
To the surprise of all, the mule was perfectly satisfied so long as it could keep its head and ears in the warmth and shelter, and never once attempted to creep in nearer; and so another hour passed, only broken by the low murmur of Dale’s voice as he talked to the guide, and the plash and rush of water. For the dripping was drowned now by the enormous amount which fell, and this went on increasing till there was quite a heavy roar, as of many falls.
“Is that anything?” said Saxe at last, as a low booming noise fell upon their ears—a sound which gradually increased.
“A waterfall,” said Melchior. “The waters on the mountains are gathering together and plunging into the valley. Listen, and you can hear others,” he continued, as he held up his hand.
From apparently close at hand what sounded like the echo of the first fall could be heard, and beyond that, farther away, another, and again another, and so on, fainter and fainter, till the whole valley seemed to be filled with the noise of rushing waters.
It was somewhat awe-inspiring, and suggested the possibility of a great flood coming down upon them to sweep everything away; but at the hint of such a catastrophe Melchior shook his head.
“Oh no,” he said. “If we were on the bank of a big stream that might be, and we should have to climb up to a place of safety; but here the waters divide a hundred ways, and will never reach us. Hah!—snow.”
He held up his hand as a rushing noise was heard somewhere high up among the dense mists. This rapidly increased to a terrific roar, followed by a deep booming crash; and so tremendous was the sound, that the noise of the falling waters seemed for the moment to be hushed. Then the thunderous crash rolled right away among the mountains, dying in faint echoes, and the rush of the waterfalls filled the air once more.
“A heavy avalanche, Melchior,” said Dale.
“Yes, herr; there is a great deal of snow up in the mountains, and this will make more.”
“What, this rain?” said Saxe.
“It is snow a thousand feet up, herr. When the clouds pass away you will see.”
Melchior’s words were correct, for toward evening the rain ceased quite suddenly, and the sun broke through the mists, which rolled their way up the mountain sides as if to reach the snow peaks. And all the lower slopes were now powdered with newly fallen snow, where they had been green on the previous day.
Every tiny-looking cascade had been turned into a furious torrent, whose waters came leaping and bounding down from far on high, one running into another, till the last was vastly swollen and plunged into the valley, to turn its stream into quite a large river for a few hours.
“Well?” said Dale, inquiringly, as he returned with Saxe from watching the rush of waters and the beauty of the fresh snow.
“Well, herr?” said the guide quietly.
“What do you think? Could we start back now and get to Andregg’s chalet to-night?”
“It is not impossible, herr; but the walking would be slippery and bad, every stream so swollen that they would be dangerous to wade, and the distance is so great that—”
“Well, go on. Why do you stop?”
“I had forgotten the schlucht, herr. We could not get through there. It would be terribly swollen. The water is close up to or over the path, and— No, I should not like to be answerable for your safety. No, herr, we must wait till to-morrow.”
“But we shall not have enough to eat,” said Saxe.
“Plenty, though only simple,” said Dale, smiling. “Come, Saxe, that’s not like talking like a mountaineer. To-morrow morning, then: will that do, Melchior?”
“I think so, herr. I am sure about our way to the mouth of the schlucht. Then we can see.”
The morning dawned with the different falls wonderfully reduced; and after a breakfast that was exactly what Dale had said overnight, an early start was made, so that they were well on their way by the time that the sun began to tinge the tops of the mountains, which, seen now from a different point of view, seemed more beautiful than before.
Then by degrees the various familiar parts came into sight, till they neared and descended into the open valley along which the river ran, and at last came to a halt close to the mouth of the gorge, where the fount gushed down and joined the water at their feet.
The horror and dread they had felt came back to their memories as they gazed down at the murky stream, rushing furiously along, now evidently many feet deeper than when they had passed that way; and Melchior drew their attention to the fact that it must have been much higher up the rocks on the previous day.
“What do you think of it?” asked Dale.
“There is a great deal of water, herr; but I think the path will be all clear. Now it is so full, the water will flow more quietly.”
“But the mule: do you think you can get it through?”
“Oh yes, herr.”
“But suppose it falls from one of these narrow places?” said Saxe excitedly.
“Oh, then we should have to go back and get it ashore, and try again, herr. Gros knows the way by water.”
“But surely that animal will never get through, Melchior?”
“Oh yes, herr. Certainly he has no hands, but his feet are as true, or truer, than a man’s. You will see he will get through. And I shall carry the basket; it is light now. You see I can shift it as I like,—he cannot.”
“Well, you know best,” said Dale. “How do you feel for the journey, Saxe?”
“Don’t like it,” said the lad bluntly, “but I’m ready. It isn’t so bad as what we did up the mountain.”
“No: you are getting your head, my boy, fast. Ready, Melchior?”
“Yes, unless the herr likes to sit down and rest for half an hour first.”
“By no means,” cried Dale. “We should be thinking of the ugly bit of work we have to do—eh, Saxe?”
“Yes, let’s go on at once, please. I don’t like waiting.”
“How shall you go—leading the mule or driving it?” asked Dale.
“Neither, herr. I shall tell him to go on, and he will lead us.”
The guide shouldered the basket, which was somewhat lightened by Dale and Saxe each taking out some of their belongings and slinging them on by straps. Then Melchior led the mule down to the ledge at the opening, said a few encouraging words, and waited.
The mule hesitated. The water was right over the track here, and the animal bent down, sniffed and pawed at it as if uneasy; but a few more words from Melchior made it go on a few steps very slowly, and continually trying its way, so as to get a good foothold before going on, and acting in a wonderfully human way by pressing itself very close to the rock.
“I hardly think we ought to venture, Melchior,” said Dale.
“Oh yes, herr. We know the extent of the danger. Gros swims like a dog, and you know he was none the worse for the last fall.”
“Go on, then.”
The mule was already going on. Finding the water more shallow on the ledge, it progressed with a little confidence, for the ledge eloped upward, and it could see the damp stone clear of the water a short distance on.
“There, herr, you see,” said the guide, after they had waded with the water just over their boots to the clear stone ledge along which the mule went on steadily now, “there is nothing to mind here.”
“I am glad you think so,” said Dale, shouting loudly, to make his voice heard beyond Saxe, who was between, and they were getting now within reach of the reverberating roar of the torrent.
Saxe glanced down as they passed the angles and gradually entered the semi-darkness, and saw that the surface of the water was smoother, and that, as they passed the waves formed by the water being hurled against the opposing faces of the rock, there was less foam and turmoil; but these places looked, if anything, more terrible than before, and the water, as it surged up so much nearer his feet, looked to his excited vision as if stealthily writhing towards him to lap round his legs like some huge serpent, and snatch him down into the depths.
Conversation was impossible, but the guide shouted a few words of encouragement to the mule, and from time to time waited for Saxe to come close up, when he shouted an inquiry or two in his ear.
“Yes, all right,” cried Saxe, who gained encouragement from the calm matter-of-fact way in which the guide went on; while, just dimly-seen as the gorge curved and wound, the mule trudged on, twitching its ears and evidently caring nothing for the turmoil and rush just below.
“I half wish he had proposed the rope, though,” thought Saxe, as they went on, with the various familiar parts seeming terrible enough, but very different to when he came through with the horrible feeling that Melchior was lost, and that at any moment they might see his body whirling round in one of the pools.
These were not so striking now, for in most of the places, as he peered down through the gloom and mist, the water was above the overhanging, cavernous holes, and the peculiar eye-like aspect of the one particular spot which had fascinated him so deeply was entirely hidden.
“It wasn’t such a very great thing, after all, for Melchior to do,” he thought, as they went on. “He has had plenty of practice, and had been before. I believe I could go through by myself.”
“But I shouldn’t like to,” he added, after a few moments’ thought; for he had to go along more carefully, in obedience to a sign from Melchior, the rock being slippery as they descended lower in the part they had now reached, and it suddenly dawned upon him that the water must have been over where he stood not perhaps many hours before.
It had the effect of coming up higher, and he was startled for the moment, fancying that the flood was rising; but he grew confident as he saw the mule clearly now, where the gorge wound off to the left and then turned again to the right, so that as the mule passed the corner and disappeared the water was only a few inches below its hoofs.
Then Melchior passed round and out of sight, and Saxe’s own turn came, and he followed into one of the gloomiest parts of the rift. And here the ledge still descended slowly till the water began to wash over the path; then, as he looked anxiously forward, he could dimly see that at every step the water splashed beneath the animal’s hoofs, and the next minute it was standing still, with the guide close up behind.
Saxe stopped short, after feeling his way for a step or two with the handle of his ice-axe, while he leaned a little against the steep wall; and Dale came up and touched his shoulder, bending down to shout in his ear.
“I can’t see from here. Is the path more covered where they are?”
“I don’t know,—I think so,” Saxe shouted back, his voice seeming to be swept away by the rushing noise that appeared to accompany the water as it hurried along.
The guide’s figure was indistinct in the mist of spray, and the mule’s seemed lost in the rock, so similar were they in tone; but the spectators could just make out that Melchior was doing all he could short of blows to urge the mule on, and that it was stubbornly refusing to stir.
“You must go on, or let me pass you, Saxe,” shouted Dale: “I want to speak to the guide.”
“It gets deeper here,” cried Saxe: “it’s over my ankles, and the water feels like ice.”
“Never mind,—go on; keep as close to the wall as you can. Shall I get by you?”
“No,” said Saxe stoutly; “I’ll try.”
He waded along the shelf, with the water getting deeper still; and now he could feel the curious sensation of the rushing stream bearing against his legs, which were immersed half-way to his knees; and at every step he cautiously sounded, to make sure where he should plant his feet.
Before he had gone many paces, Melchior had returned to meet him; and as Dale closed up the guide shouted:
“I can’t get him along, sir, and I dare not make him restive by a blow.”
“No, no—of course not. But the water?”
“It is deeper farther on, herr—I think about a foot—and he will not move.”
“It is impossible to back him, of course?”
“Oh yes, herr; and he cannot turn.”
“Then we must get by him and go on and leave him to follow.”
“Impossible, herr,” yelled Melchior. “If we tried he might kick.”
“Go and coax him.”
“It is no use, herr. The poor beast is right. He says in his way that it is not safe to go on, and that we must wait.”
“Wait in a place like this!” cried Dale. “The water is icy, and the noise deafening. Can you recollect how much the path goes down beyond the mule?”
“I don’t think it goes down at all, herr.”
“Then the water must be rising,” cried Dale excitedly; and the guide nodded.
“We must not be caught in this terrible trap. I thought the water was sinking.”
“It was, herr; but there must have been a fresh fall of rain at the other end of the lake, and it is rising now fast.”
Chapter Sixteen.A grave Peril.“Then we must get back at once. But the mule?”“We cannot move him, herr. It is impossible to do anything, and he must stay. The water may not rise high enough to take him off his legs. If it does he must go down with the stream and get out himself below yonder. I would say stay, but if the water rises to our waists, we should not be able to stand against the stream.”“Try the mule once more,” said Dale. “We may get through.”The guide waded carefully back along the ledge-like path, and they could dimly see him patting and coaxing the beast, but with no effect whatever; and they stood there impatiently waiting till he returned to them, but not before both Dale and Saxe were painfully aware that the water was slowly creeping up toward their knees and the position growing perilous.“It is useless, herr,” cried Melchior, as he rejoined them. “You will lead back, sir; but wait a minute,—we will have the rope.”He took it from his shoulder and rapidly passed one end to Dale, who knotted it about his waist, while the middle was once more tied round Saxe, and finally the other end to the guide, who then made a sign, and Dale began to retrace his steps toward the lower mouth of the gorge.Even in that little time the difference in the level of the water was very evident; and as Saxe waded along, with the stream rushing by him and seeming to give him quite a series of pushes, he could not help an excited feeling of dread filling his breast, and he wondered whether he should get out of the place alive if some sudden rush of water came down in a wave and swept them off the ledge.It was slow work for a few minutes, till the path rose once more, and then they progressed pretty quickly till the shelf ran down again; and as Saxe went on through the gloom, feeling that the rope was kept fairly taut, another sharp bend was turned, and they came in view of the facing wall of rock, against which the stream rushed and rose up now in such a body that Melchior raised his voice loudly:“Stop, herr!” he cried: “don’t try to pass.”“No,” said Dale, as Saxe and the guide closed up, “the water has increased there terribly. We should be swept away.”“Then we’re shut in!” cried Saxe.“Yes, herr; but only for a time. The waters rise quickly and fall as quickly in the schluchts. Let’s get back to the highest part, where we can be dry. If we could only have reached farther on!”He said no more, for it was hard work to make the voice heard in the midst of this terrific reverberating war of the fierce waters, but he turned and led the way back round the corner they had so lately passed, to where the ledge was fully four feet above the stream.Here he calmly seated himself on the damp stone, with his legs hanging down toward the dark rushing water, took out and filled his great pipe, and then looked up at his companions, as if inviting them to be seated too.There was but little temptation to follow his example, and sit down on the humid rock; but it offered rest, poor as it was, and Saxe and Dale both followed the example set them, while Melchior calmly lit his pipe and began to smoke and wait patiently for the water to go down.But Saxe’s nature was too impatient for this, and before he had been seated there many minutes he began to strain his neck in looking up to right and left.Melchior leaned over to him and shouted in his ear, he having divined the boy’s thoughts from his actions.“No, herr, no—not here. There is one place where, with a hammer and plenty of iron spikes to drive in the cracks of the rock, we might perhaps get to the top; but it would be impossible without. We should want ten times as much rope too.”“Is the water going down now?” shouted back Saxe, after a pause.Melchior looked down and shook his head.“Will it come with a sudden rush, like a river?”“Oh no. It may rise very quickly, but not all at once. Of course it all comes from the lake, and the waters of the lake swell from hundreds of streams and falls. No, herr, it will not come down with a rush.”“But it is rising very fast,” said Dale, who had caught part of their conversation. “Are we on the highest part that we can reach!”“Yes, herr; and I am sorry I have brought you in. I try to be a perfect guide, but there is no such thing. I ought to have been prepared for another rise after the storm we had. Forgive me.”“You think, then, that the water will come up above where we are sitting.”The guide nodded, and pointed to a dimly-seen mark upon the wall, quite level with their heads.“Then we must find some other ledge upon which we can stand,” cried Dale, rising to his feet.Melchior shook his head. “There is none,” he said.“You have not looked.”“Herr, I searched the wall with my eyes as we went and returned. A guide studies the places he passes, and learns them by heart, so that they may be useful at some time, should he want them. Look above you: the wall hangs over all the way. Nothing but a fly could stand anywhere along here.”It was undeniable, as Dale could see; and he leaned back against the rock and folded his arms, gazing down sternly at the rising water, till the guide spoke again, as he finished his pipe, knocked out the ashes, and replaced it in his breast.“It would be wise to take off the rope,” he said quietly.“Why?” cried Saxe excitedly.“Because, if we are swept down with the stream, it would be in our way—perhaps catch in some rock below, or tangle round our legs and arms.”“You feel, then,” cried Dale, “that there is no hope of the waters going down, and that we shall soon have a chance to get through?”Saxe, whose brain had been full of horrors suggested by the guide’s last words—words which had called up visions of unfortunate people vainly struggling to reach the surface beyond the reach of the strangling water, but held down by that terrible rope—now sat listening eagerly for Melchior’s next utterance, as the man began deliberately unfastening the rope.“I can say nothing for certain, herr,” he replied. “We are in the hands of the great God, whose children we are, and we must be patient and wait. I hope we shall get out safely,—perhaps I think we shall—but it is our duty to be ready. The young herr swims, I know, and so do you, herr; but if we have to make for the lower end of the schlucht, try and remember this: Don’t struggle to get to the surface, for it is waste of strength. You cannot swim properly in this water, for all torrents are full of bubbles of air, and these do not bear one up like still water. What you must do is, to get a fresh breath now and then, and let the stream carry you along.”Saxe looked horrified, and the guide interpreted his thoughts.“You will easily do it. The stream is swifter now than when I went through, and I had all the distance to journey. You will only have half. It looks very horrible, but after the first plunge you do not mind. Now, herr, let me untie you.”He turned to Saxe, who submitted to the operation without a word, and then watched the guide as he carefully laid up the rope in rings upon his left arm. Meanwhile, Dale had unfastened his end, and stood waiting to hand it to the guide, who secured it round the coil before hanging it across his breast.He then carefully examined the level of the water by bending downward and noting where it now ran against a crack in the rock.“Sinking?” cried Saxe eagerly.“Rising,” replied the guide laconically.Then there was a long silence, during which Saxe, as if doubting that the guide was right, carefully examined the walls of the chasm, but always with the same result: he could see rifts and places in plenty where he could have climbed high enough to be beyond reach of the water even if it rose thirty or forty feet; but they were all on the other side, which was slightly convex, while their side, as the guide had pointed out, was concave, and would have matched exactly if the sides had been driven together.“No, herr,” said Melchior quietly, “I should not have stopped so still if there had been a chance to get away. I should like to say one thing more about the water rising: if we are swept down, try both of you not to cling to each other or me for help. One is quite useless at such a time, and we should only exhaust each other.”Dale nodded, and Saxe felt as if one prop which held him to existence had been suddenly struck away.There was another dreary pause, during which they listened to the waters’ roar; and Melchior bent down again, and rose to his feet once more, with his brow rugged.“Rising,” he said hoarsely; and then he leaned back against the rock with his arms crossed and his eyes half-closed, silent as his companions, for talking was painfully laborious at such a time.An hour must have passed, and every time Melchior bent down he rose with the same stern look upon his countenance, the darkness making it heavier-looking and more weird. Both Saxe and Dale could see the difference plainly now, for it must have been a foot higher at least, and they knew it was only a matter of time before it would reach their feet.And as Saxe stood there, miserably dejected, he began thinking and picturing to himself the snow melting and trickling down thousands of tiny cracks which netted the tops of the mountains, and then joined together in greater veins, and these again in greater, till they formed rushing streams, and lastly rivers, which thundered into the lake.Then he began thinking of his school-days, and then of his life at home, and the intense delight he had felt at the prospect of coming out to the Alps with Dale, the pleasures he had anticipated, and how lightly he had treated all allusions to danger.“I’ll be careful,” he had said: “I can take care of myself.” And as he recalled all this, he dolefully asked himself how he could be careful at a time like this.He was in the midst of these musings when Melchior bent down again, and rose once more so quickly, that Dale shouted to him.“Rising? Shall we jump in and swim for it at once.”“No, herr; we must wait.”“Ah! look—look!” cried Saxe, pointing downward.“Yes, yes: what?” cried the others in a breath.“The poor mule—the poor mule!”“What?”“I saw it roll over. Its leg came out, and then I saw its back for a moment, and it was gone.”“Poor old Gros!” cried Melchior; and he hurried along the shelf as far as he could go, and knelt down.He soon returned, looking very sad.“I just caught a glint of its back in the water, and it was gone. Poor beast!” he said; “he did not seem to be struggling. I’m afraid he is gone.”This was a bad omen, and Dale looked very hard, and then Melchior once more went down on his knees and peered into the stream, to measure it with his eyes.“Hah!” he exclaimed, as he got up and began to fumble for his pipe and matches.“Risen much?” Dale’s eyes said, as he turned them upon the guide.“No, herr. Heaven be praised! The water is down a hand’s breadth since I looked last. It is falling fast.”Dale turned sharply round and caught Saxe’s hand, wringing it so hard that he gave him pain. Then, extending his hand to Melchior, the guide took it and held it for a few moments in silence.“Yes, herr,” he said cheerily; then, “I dare say we shall be through in an hour. The waters flow swiftly, and once the flood is passed the lake soon gets down again. But I’m sorry poor old Gros is gone.”“I will pay Andregg handsomely for his loss,” said Dale quickly; but the guide shook his head.“No money will pay for the loss of old friends, herr. Gros has been looked upon as a companion by Andregg for these many years. It will be a bitter thing to go and say he is dead.”He was silent for a few minutes. Then, raising his voice, he said loudly:“It seems strange to you English gentlemen; but you come from great cities where people are many, and you can hardly count your friends. Out here in the deep thals, where men are shut up by the snow for weeks together, with only their cows and mules and goats, they grow to look upon the animals about them as friends, just as the poor animals themselves look to their masters for their care, and run to them for help and shelter when the great storms come down. Why, herr, you have seen they live in part of the house. The chalet is built up with a warm shelter beneath for the little flock or herd. Poor Gros! Andregg will nearly break his heart; and,” added the guide simply, “he will not even have the consolation of saving the skin.”This last notion, in the reaction he felt, sounded so droll to Saxe that he turned away his head for fear the guide should see him smile.But Melchior saw nothing; and stooping down again, he rose.“Going down very fast, herr. In another hour I think we may venture to start again.”The torrent tore along so furiously that in the time specified the little party made a start, and then paused again as they reached the place where the ledge descended into the water. For the stream rushed along heavily as Melchior began to wade; and he once more uncoiled and passed the rope.“It is heavy going,” he shouted; “but every minute it will be better, for after a little while the path rises quite high.”They started again, and Saxe felt his heart beat heavily as the water rose to his knees and he could feel its soft strong push against him; but he forgot all this the next moment, on hearing Melchior give vent to his feelings in a long, loud jodel, which sounded strange enough in the awful rift, with an accompaniment of the noise of rushing waters, but not half so strange as the curious whinnying half-squeal, half-neigh, that came back from a little way ahead.For there, dimly-seen, was the mule, standing just as they had left him; and as they approached he signified his joy by a very near approach to a bray.“And you said you saw him swept by!” cried Dale.“I saw a leg and a bit of back,” said Melchior; “but it might have belonged to any poor drowned beast swept out of the lake. Why, Gros! old Gros!” he cried, wading up to the mule, “this is the grandest sight I’ve had these many days!” while the mule literally squealed and stamped, sending the water flying in its delight at hearing human voices again.But a good hour passed before the cautious animal—as if assured by its own instinct that the way was safe—began to advance, and in a short time was upon the clear ledge, trudging steadily along, Melchior following with his load, till the bright daylight was seen ahead, and they came to a halt on the platform whence Gros had fallen and dragged in his leader.The rest of the journey was easily performed, Gros bearing his lightened load on along the edge of the lake, and past the place where Dale had searched for gold, till the vale at the foot of the great glacier was neared, when the mule set up a loud squealing, which was answered by the donkey’s bray and a lowing from the cows.Then Melchior jodelled, and it was responded to from the chalet, where Andregg, his wife, and Pierre were standing watching, and ready to prepare a comfortable meal and usher Gros into the shelter in the lower part of the place.In another hour Saxe was lying upon his bed of sweet-scented hay half asleep, thinking of all he had gone through since he last lay there, and ready to ask himself whether it was not all a dream. Then suddenly consciousness failed, and he was really in the land of dreams.
“Then we must get back at once. But the mule?”
“We cannot move him, herr. It is impossible to do anything, and he must stay. The water may not rise high enough to take him off his legs. If it does he must go down with the stream and get out himself below yonder. I would say stay, but if the water rises to our waists, we should not be able to stand against the stream.”
“Try the mule once more,” said Dale. “We may get through.”
The guide waded carefully back along the ledge-like path, and they could dimly see him patting and coaxing the beast, but with no effect whatever; and they stood there impatiently waiting till he returned to them, but not before both Dale and Saxe were painfully aware that the water was slowly creeping up toward their knees and the position growing perilous.
“It is useless, herr,” cried Melchior, as he rejoined them. “You will lead back, sir; but wait a minute,—we will have the rope.”
He took it from his shoulder and rapidly passed one end to Dale, who knotted it about his waist, while the middle was once more tied round Saxe, and finally the other end to the guide, who then made a sign, and Dale began to retrace his steps toward the lower mouth of the gorge.
Even in that little time the difference in the level of the water was very evident; and as Saxe waded along, with the stream rushing by him and seeming to give him quite a series of pushes, he could not help an excited feeling of dread filling his breast, and he wondered whether he should get out of the place alive if some sudden rush of water came down in a wave and swept them off the ledge.
It was slow work for a few minutes, till the path rose once more, and then they progressed pretty quickly till the shelf ran down again; and as Saxe went on through the gloom, feeling that the rope was kept fairly taut, another sharp bend was turned, and they came in view of the facing wall of rock, against which the stream rushed and rose up now in such a body that Melchior raised his voice loudly:
“Stop, herr!” he cried: “don’t try to pass.”
“No,” said Dale, as Saxe and the guide closed up, “the water has increased there terribly. We should be swept away.”
“Then we’re shut in!” cried Saxe.
“Yes, herr; but only for a time. The waters rise quickly and fall as quickly in the schluchts. Let’s get back to the highest part, where we can be dry. If we could only have reached farther on!”
He said no more, for it was hard work to make the voice heard in the midst of this terrific reverberating war of the fierce waters, but he turned and led the way back round the corner they had so lately passed, to where the ledge was fully four feet above the stream.
Here he calmly seated himself on the damp stone, with his legs hanging down toward the dark rushing water, took out and filled his great pipe, and then looked up at his companions, as if inviting them to be seated too.
There was but little temptation to follow his example, and sit down on the humid rock; but it offered rest, poor as it was, and Saxe and Dale both followed the example set them, while Melchior calmly lit his pipe and began to smoke and wait patiently for the water to go down.
But Saxe’s nature was too impatient for this, and before he had been seated there many minutes he began to strain his neck in looking up to right and left.
Melchior leaned over to him and shouted in his ear, he having divined the boy’s thoughts from his actions.
“No, herr, no—not here. There is one place where, with a hammer and plenty of iron spikes to drive in the cracks of the rock, we might perhaps get to the top; but it would be impossible without. We should want ten times as much rope too.”
“Is the water going down now?” shouted back Saxe, after a pause.
Melchior looked down and shook his head.
“Will it come with a sudden rush, like a river?”
“Oh no. It may rise very quickly, but not all at once. Of course it all comes from the lake, and the waters of the lake swell from hundreds of streams and falls. No, herr, it will not come down with a rush.”
“But it is rising very fast,” said Dale, who had caught part of their conversation. “Are we on the highest part that we can reach!”
“Yes, herr; and I am sorry I have brought you in. I try to be a perfect guide, but there is no such thing. I ought to have been prepared for another rise after the storm we had. Forgive me.”
“You think, then, that the water will come up above where we are sitting.”
The guide nodded, and pointed to a dimly-seen mark upon the wall, quite level with their heads.
“Then we must find some other ledge upon which we can stand,” cried Dale, rising to his feet.
Melchior shook his head. “There is none,” he said.
“You have not looked.”
“Herr, I searched the wall with my eyes as we went and returned. A guide studies the places he passes, and learns them by heart, so that they may be useful at some time, should he want them. Look above you: the wall hangs over all the way. Nothing but a fly could stand anywhere along here.”
It was undeniable, as Dale could see; and he leaned back against the rock and folded his arms, gazing down sternly at the rising water, till the guide spoke again, as he finished his pipe, knocked out the ashes, and replaced it in his breast.
“It would be wise to take off the rope,” he said quietly.
“Why?” cried Saxe excitedly.
“Because, if we are swept down with the stream, it would be in our way—perhaps catch in some rock below, or tangle round our legs and arms.”
“You feel, then,” cried Dale, “that there is no hope of the waters going down, and that we shall soon have a chance to get through?”
Saxe, whose brain had been full of horrors suggested by the guide’s last words—words which had called up visions of unfortunate people vainly struggling to reach the surface beyond the reach of the strangling water, but held down by that terrible rope—now sat listening eagerly for Melchior’s next utterance, as the man began deliberately unfastening the rope.
“I can say nothing for certain, herr,” he replied. “We are in the hands of the great God, whose children we are, and we must be patient and wait. I hope we shall get out safely,—perhaps I think we shall—but it is our duty to be ready. The young herr swims, I know, and so do you, herr; but if we have to make for the lower end of the schlucht, try and remember this: Don’t struggle to get to the surface, for it is waste of strength. You cannot swim properly in this water, for all torrents are full of bubbles of air, and these do not bear one up like still water. What you must do is, to get a fresh breath now and then, and let the stream carry you along.”
Saxe looked horrified, and the guide interpreted his thoughts.
“You will easily do it. The stream is swifter now than when I went through, and I had all the distance to journey. You will only have half. It looks very horrible, but after the first plunge you do not mind. Now, herr, let me untie you.”
He turned to Saxe, who submitted to the operation without a word, and then watched the guide as he carefully laid up the rope in rings upon his left arm. Meanwhile, Dale had unfastened his end, and stood waiting to hand it to the guide, who secured it round the coil before hanging it across his breast.
He then carefully examined the level of the water by bending downward and noting where it now ran against a crack in the rock.
“Sinking?” cried Saxe eagerly.
“Rising,” replied the guide laconically.
Then there was a long silence, during which Saxe, as if doubting that the guide was right, carefully examined the walls of the chasm, but always with the same result: he could see rifts and places in plenty where he could have climbed high enough to be beyond reach of the water even if it rose thirty or forty feet; but they were all on the other side, which was slightly convex, while their side, as the guide had pointed out, was concave, and would have matched exactly if the sides had been driven together.
“No, herr,” said Melchior quietly, “I should not have stopped so still if there had been a chance to get away. I should like to say one thing more about the water rising: if we are swept down, try both of you not to cling to each other or me for help. One is quite useless at such a time, and we should only exhaust each other.”
Dale nodded, and Saxe felt as if one prop which held him to existence had been suddenly struck away.
There was another dreary pause, during which they listened to the waters’ roar; and Melchior bent down again, and rose to his feet once more, with his brow rugged.
“Rising,” he said hoarsely; and then he leaned back against the rock with his arms crossed and his eyes half-closed, silent as his companions, for talking was painfully laborious at such a time.
An hour must have passed, and every time Melchior bent down he rose with the same stern look upon his countenance, the darkness making it heavier-looking and more weird. Both Saxe and Dale could see the difference plainly now, for it must have been a foot higher at least, and they knew it was only a matter of time before it would reach their feet.
And as Saxe stood there, miserably dejected, he began thinking and picturing to himself the snow melting and trickling down thousands of tiny cracks which netted the tops of the mountains, and then joined together in greater veins, and these again in greater, till they formed rushing streams, and lastly rivers, which thundered into the lake.
Then he began thinking of his school-days, and then of his life at home, and the intense delight he had felt at the prospect of coming out to the Alps with Dale, the pleasures he had anticipated, and how lightly he had treated all allusions to danger.
“I’ll be careful,” he had said: “I can take care of myself.” And as he recalled all this, he dolefully asked himself how he could be careful at a time like this.
He was in the midst of these musings when Melchior bent down again, and rose once more so quickly, that Dale shouted to him.
“Rising? Shall we jump in and swim for it at once.”
“No, herr; we must wait.”
“Ah! look—look!” cried Saxe, pointing downward.
“Yes, yes: what?” cried the others in a breath.
“The poor mule—the poor mule!”
“What?”
“I saw it roll over. Its leg came out, and then I saw its back for a moment, and it was gone.”
“Poor old Gros!” cried Melchior; and he hurried along the shelf as far as he could go, and knelt down.
He soon returned, looking very sad.
“I just caught a glint of its back in the water, and it was gone. Poor beast!” he said; “he did not seem to be struggling. I’m afraid he is gone.”
This was a bad omen, and Dale looked very hard, and then Melchior once more went down on his knees and peered into the stream, to measure it with his eyes.
“Hah!” he exclaimed, as he got up and began to fumble for his pipe and matches.
“Risen much?” Dale’s eyes said, as he turned them upon the guide.
“No, herr. Heaven be praised! The water is down a hand’s breadth since I looked last. It is falling fast.”
Dale turned sharply round and caught Saxe’s hand, wringing it so hard that he gave him pain. Then, extending his hand to Melchior, the guide took it and held it for a few moments in silence.
“Yes, herr,” he said cheerily; then, “I dare say we shall be through in an hour. The waters flow swiftly, and once the flood is passed the lake soon gets down again. But I’m sorry poor old Gros is gone.”
“I will pay Andregg handsomely for his loss,” said Dale quickly; but the guide shook his head.
“No money will pay for the loss of old friends, herr. Gros has been looked upon as a companion by Andregg for these many years. It will be a bitter thing to go and say he is dead.”
He was silent for a few minutes. Then, raising his voice, he said loudly:
“It seems strange to you English gentlemen; but you come from great cities where people are many, and you can hardly count your friends. Out here in the deep thals, where men are shut up by the snow for weeks together, with only their cows and mules and goats, they grow to look upon the animals about them as friends, just as the poor animals themselves look to their masters for their care, and run to them for help and shelter when the great storms come down. Why, herr, you have seen they live in part of the house. The chalet is built up with a warm shelter beneath for the little flock or herd. Poor Gros! Andregg will nearly break his heart; and,” added the guide simply, “he will not even have the consolation of saving the skin.”
This last notion, in the reaction he felt, sounded so droll to Saxe that he turned away his head for fear the guide should see him smile.
But Melchior saw nothing; and stooping down again, he rose.
“Going down very fast, herr. In another hour I think we may venture to start again.”
The torrent tore along so furiously that in the time specified the little party made a start, and then paused again as they reached the place where the ledge descended into the water. For the stream rushed along heavily as Melchior began to wade; and he once more uncoiled and passed the rope.
“It is heavy going,” he shouted; “but every minute it will be better, for after a little while the path rises quite high.”
They started again, and Saxe felt his heart beat heavily as the water rose to his knees and he could feel its soft strong push against him; but he forgot all this the next moment, on hearing Melchior give vent to his feelings in a long, loud jodel, which sounded strange enough in the awful rift, with an accompaniment of the noise of rushing waters, but not half so strange as the curious whinnying half-squeal, half-neigh, that came back from a little way ahead.
For there, dimly-seen, was the mule, standing just as they had left him; and as they approached he signified his joy by a very near approach to a bray.
“And you said you saw him swept by!” cried Dale.
“I saw a leg and a bit of back,” said Melchior; “but it might have belonged to any poor drowned beast swept out of the lake. Why, Gros! old Gros!” he cried, wading up to the mule, “this is the grandest sight I’ve had these many days!” while the mule literally squealed and stamped, sending the water flying in its delight at hearing human voices again.
But a good hour passed before the cautious animal—as if assured by its own instinct that the way was safe—began to advance, and in a short time was upon the clear ledge, trudging steadily along, Melchior following with his load, till the bright daylight was seen ahead, and they came to a halt on the platform whence Gros had fallen and dragged in his leader.
The rest of the journey was easily performed, Gros bearing his lightened load on along the edge of the lake, and past the place where Dale had searched for gold, till the vale at the foot of the great glacier was neared, when the mule set up a loud squealing, which was answered by the donkey’s bray and a lowing from the cows.
Then Melchior jodelled, and it was responded to from the chalet, where Andregg, his wife, and Pierre were standing watching, and ready to prepare a comfortable meal and usher Gros into the shelter in the lower part of the place.
In another hour Saxe was lying upon his bed of sweet-scented hay half asleep, thinking of all he had gone through since he last lay there, and ready to ask himself whether it was not all a dream. Then suddenly consciousness failed, and he was really in the land of dreams.
Chapter Seventeen.Saxe takes a Shower-Bath.The musical tinkling of bells roused Saxe at daybreak; and, as he listened to the pleasant sound produced by quite a large herd of goats, their leader’s horn was heard from time to time collecting stragglers who were disposed to stop at intervals to begin breakfasting on the way.“We haven’t done much in finding crystals yet,” thought Saxe, as he lay. “I wonder what he means to do this morning. I feel as if I should like a day or two’s rest; but I don’t know—I’m not so very tired.”He lay very still for a few minutes, listening to the tinkling chime of the goat-bells, gradually growing more distant as their wearers made their way up the side of the valley; and as he listened he could tell as well as if he were watching when one of the goats broke away from the herd and leaped and bounded among the rocks to some tempting patch of young green grass,—for there was a sudden splash, so to speak, in the stream of sound; and again when two or three young kids rose on their hind legs and butted and danced at each other.The picture Saxe painted in his mind made him restless, and the morning love of another half-hour being chased away, he determined to rise and get out in the clear, fresh air.“Time they woke up,” thought Saxe at last, as the pale dawn stole in through the chinks. “Tired, I suppose.”He lay listening now to the low murmuring sound of the cowbells, whose chime was silvery and pleasant, and trembled and vibrated in the air; and again he pictured the soft-eyed, meek, lowing creatures, slowly picking their way among the great mossy stones which had been tumbled down from the mountain.“Oh, I sha’n’t lie here any longer,” said Saxe to himself. “I say!” he cried: “Mr Dale! Ahoy! It’s to-morrow morning. Oh, what a noddle I am!” he muttered. “It’s broad daylight, Mr Dale. Are you coming for a dip?”No answer.“I say, Mr Dale! Time to get up.”All was silent, and Saxe raised himself on his elbow and peered through the darkness at the heap of hay beside him.“He must have been tired last night,” he muttered, “and old Melk too. I say, Mr Dale! do you know what you say to me sometimes?”“No: that he doesn’t,” thought Saxe. “He is sleeping fast, and if I wake him he’ll turn rusty. I don’t care. Here—hi! Mr Dale. Breakfast!”Still no reply.“Oh, I must rouse him,” cried Saxe, and, springing up, he went to where his companion slept, and then gave the hay an angry kick.“What a shame!” he cried. “I do call that shabby. They’ve been up ever so long, and gone somewhere without me. It’s too bad!”He hurried out of the great loft-like place, and encountered the sour-looking man Pierre.“Here!” he cried, in atrociously bad German, bolstered up and patched with English: “where’s the herr, and where’s Melchior?”Pierre, whose hair was full of scraps of hay, took off his cap and scratched his head.“Where is the herr and where is the guide?” said Saxe, a little louder and with a worse pronunciation.Pierre opened his mouth, let his head hang forward, and stared at the lad in a heavy, stupid way.“I say, William Tell,” cried Saxe—in plain English now—“can’t you understand your own language?”The man stared more heavily than before.“Regardez donc: parlez-vous Français?”The stare continued.“Well, you are a lively one,” muttered Saxe. “Here, I’ll have another try at you. ‘Wollen Sie mir.’ Let’s see: ‘wollen Sie mir’—what’s ‘have the goodness to tell me which way the guide and Mr Dale went?’—You don’t understand? No more do I how you can stand there like an ugly bit of rustic carving. I say, stupid! Can you understand that? Oh, I’m as stupid as he is. Get out of the way, old wooden wisdom, and let’s find your master.”Just at that moment voices fell upon the lad’s ear, evidently coming from a rough building formed of pine logs built up log-hut fashion.He hurried towards it, and found old Andregg standing at the door looking in, but ready to turn and salute him with a pleasant smile and the friendly “good morning” of the Swiss people.“Ah, Saxe! that you?” said Dale, who was busy with Melchior repacking some of the things which had been brought up the valley by Pierre during their absence. “Had a good night’s rest?”“Yes. But why didn’t you call me when you got up?”“I did, and so did Melchior; but you were so sound that I thought I’d let you sleep. Well, all the traps are right, and I’ve been packing up what we want to take.”“Where?”“Into the heart of the mountains.”“And when do you start?”“As soon as ever we have done breakfast and put together a good supply of food. Had your bath?”“No. I meant to go with you.”“Go and have it, and by that time we shall be ready for breakfast.”Saxe went off rather dissatisfied, towel in hand, to pass their landlord’s wife and receive a nod and smile. Then he went on towards the place which he had visited before; and now, one by one, the cold-looking peaks began to turn rosy and brighten, the scene changing so rapidly to orange and gold that Saxe forgot his dissatisfied feelings, and at last stopped to look round in admiration, then in dismay, and at last in something approaching rage; for not a dozen yards behind him was the heavy, stolid face of Pierre, his mouth looking as if it had not been shut since he spoke to him.The man had stopped when Saxe stopped, and he continued his heavy stare.“Oh! I do wish I had paid more attention to my jolly old French and German at school,” muttered Saxe, as the man’s stare quite worried him. “I wonder what ‘be off’ is? Allez-vous en he would not understand. ‘Gehen!’ That’s ‘to go.’ But you can’t say ‘to go’ to a fellow, when you want him to be off. And you can’t say ‘go to,’ because gehen’s only one word. I know: ‘Gehen sie Jericho!’ I’ll let that off at him if he follows me any farther.”Saxe nodded at the man, said “Morgen,” and went on.“‘Morgen!’ Well, that’s ‘good morning.’ He must understand that; but I don’t believe he understands it as we do when one says ‘good morning’ to a fellow and means he’s to go. Oh! I say, what are you following me for? I know. He is a dirty-looking beggar. He’s coming for a wash. But after me, please, mein herr. I’ll have first go. Ugh! I’d rather have a bath after a pig.”Saxe went on rapidly; but the man still followed, walking when he did, and timing his pace to keep up; stopping when he did, and provoking such a feeling of irritation in the English lad, that he suddenly faced round and fired the speech he had prepared, but with lingual additions which ornamented and certainly obscured the meaning.“Here, I say! you, sir!” he cried: “old what’s-your-name—Pierre? ‘gehen Jericho!’”The man still stared.“I say, ‘gehen Jericho!’ and if you will, ‘danke schön,’ and good luck to you. Oh, I say, do shut that ugly mouth of yours. What’s the good of keeping it open if you’re not going to speak! There’s no breakfast here.”Pierre still stared, and Saxe swung round again and went on.“It’s too bad to be bothered by a foreigner like him,” he muttered. “I meant to have a regular natural shower-bath,”—he glanced up at the beautiful spray fall beyond him as he said this to himself—“but now I can’t have it, with this fellow watching me, and it’ll only mean a scrub and rub.”He stopped and turned round again, to find Pierre in his old position just the same distance behind.“I tell you what it is, old chap: if you don’t shut up that mouth, I shall be tempted to pitch a round stone into it; and if it wasn’t for fear of getting up war between England and Switzerland, I’d come and punch your head. Here, I say! Do you hear? Be off!”Pierre stared.“Oh! I know what you are,” grumbled Saxe: “you’re a cretin—an idiot. I suppose there are lots of you in the valleys. Here—hi! Catch!”Saxe took a twenty-cent nickel coin from his pocket, and took aim.“I’ll pitch it right into his mouth,” he said to himself. “There you are, old chap! Don’t swallow it!”He threw the coin so truly, that if Pierre had stood still it would, in all probability, have gone where it was aimed. But the man’s action was as quick as that of a monkey. With one sharp dash of the hand he caught the piece, scowled as he found that it was not half a florin, and then thrust it into his pocket and stared.“Oh my!” muttered Saxe as he went on; “he’s worse than that lost dog, who came and said to me that I was his master, and that he’d never leave me as long as I lived. I hope this chap isn’t going to follow me all the time we’re here.”He stopped once more.“I say, old chap, do you want anything?”No answer but the stolid stare.“Don’t you know that it’s very rude? Bah! I might as well discuss Euclid with old Gros. Just you wait till I’ve had my tub and got back to breakfast, and if I don’t set old Melchior at you I’m a Dutchman.”Fully determined to take no more notice of the man, Saxe went on to the pool, had a comfortable wash in the sparkling water, which was invigorating to a degree, scrubbed himself dry, and all the time battled hard with an intense desire to throw stones at Pierre, who stood watching every act some ten yards away.“Thank you,” said Saxe at last, as he opened a pocket-comb, and began to use it to his wet hair: “I’ve quite done, thank you; but if I might give you a bit of advice, I wouldn’t wash much this morning. Do it by degrees. If you made yourself quite clean, you might catch cold; and besides, the cows and goats wouldn’t know you. ‘Morgen’ once more.”Saxe started to return, leaving his stolid companion behind and fully expecting to hear him splashing in the pool; but two minutes later he exclaimed:“No fear of his catching cold or frightening the cows. I don’t believe he has had a wash for a month. Why, if he isn’t following me again! Well, he shall run.”It was not a very satisfactory place for running, encumbered as it was with stones; but Saxe was as active as most lads of his age, and he started off dodging in and out among huge blocks of granite, leaping from smooth glacier ground rock to rock, making good speed over the patches of level grass and whin, and sending the blood coursing through his veins in the bright morning air; but to his intense annoyance he found that his activity was nothing to that of the heavy, dirty-looking being who kept up easily close to his heels, for every now and then the man leaped from rock to rock as surely as a goat. But growing a little out of breath, and thinking at last that it was of no use to tire himself so soon in the morning, the boy slowly settled down into a walk just as a loud jodel came echoing from the sheltered hollow where the chalet stood.“Hallo!” said Saxe, whose good humour came back at the thoughts connected with that cry. “There’s old Melk ringing the breakfast bell;” and once more he stopped, placed his hand to the side of his mouth, and jodelled.“There, old chap, what do you think of that?” he said, looking back at Pierre, who stood rooted there with quite a different expression upon his countenance. The heavy, vacant look had given way to one of utter astonishment, wonder flashed from his eyes, and as Saxe grasped the reason he swung himself round in dudgeon.“Oh, you ignorant donkey!” he muttered: “it was as good a jodel as old Melk’s. I said you were an idiot, and this proves it: never heard an Englishman jodel before?”Five minutes after he was enjoying the steaming hot coffee and delicious milk, butter, eggs and bread, discussing—often with his mouth too fall—the plans of the coming day’s work.
The musical tinkling of bells roused Saxe at daybreak; and, as he listened to the pleasant sound produced by quite a large herd of goats, their leader’s horn was heard from time to time collecting stragglers who were disposed to stop at intervals to begin breakfasting on the way.
“We haven’t done much in finding crystals yet,” thought Saxe, as he lay. “I wonder what he means to do this morning. I feel as if I should like a day or two’s rest; but I don’t know—I’m not so very tired.”
He lay very still for a few minutes, listening to the tinkling chime of the goat-bells, gradually growing more distant as their wearers made their way up the side of the valley; and as he listened he could tell as well as if he were watching when one of the goats broke away from the herd and leaped and bounded among the rocks to some tempting patch of young green grass,—for there was a sudden splash, so to speak, in the stream of sound; and again when two or three young kids rose on their hind legs and butted and danced at each other.
The picture Saxe painted in his mind made him restless, and the morning love of another half-hour being chased away, he determined to rise and get out in the clear, fresh air.
“Time they woke up,” thought Saxe at last, as the pale dawn stole in through the chinks. “Tired, I suppose.”
He lay listening now to the low murmuring sound of the cowbells, whose chime was silvery and pleasant, and trembled and vibrated in the air; and again he pictured the soft-eyed, meek, lowing creatures, slowly picking their way among the great mossy stones which had been tumbled down from the mountain.
“Oh, I sha’n’t lie here any longer,” said Saxe to himself. “I say!” he cried: “Mr Dale! Ahoy! It’s to-morrow morning. Oh, what a noddle I am!” he muttered. “It’s broad daylight, Mr Dale. Are you coming for a dip?”
No answer.
“I say, Mr Dale! Time to get up.”
All was silent, and Saxe raised himself on his elbow and peered through the darkness at the heap of hay beside him.
“He must have been tired last night,” he muttered, “and old Melk too. I say, Mr Dale! do you know what you say to me sometimes?”
“No: that he doesn’t,” thought Saxe. “He is sleeping fast, and if I wake him he’ll turn rusty. I don’t care. Here—hi! Mr Dale. Breakfast!”
Still no reply.
“Oh, I must rouse him,” cried Saxe, and, springing up, he went to where his companion slept, and then gave the hay an angry kick.
“What a shame!” he cried. “I do call that shabby. They’ve been up ever so long, and gone somewhere without me. It’s too bad!”
He hurried out of the great loft-like place, and encountered the sour-looking man Pierre.
“Here!” he cried, in atrociously bad German, bolstered up and patched with English: “where’s the herr, and where’s Melchior?”
Pierre, whose hair was full of scraps of hay, took off his cap and scratched his head.
“Where is the herr and where is the guide?” said Saxe, a little louder and with a worse pronunciation.
Pierre opened his mouth, let his head hang forward, and stared at the lad in a heavy, stupid way.
“I say, William Tell,” cried Saxe—in plain English now—“can’t you understand your own language?”
The man stared more heavily than before.
“Regardez donc: parlez-vous Français?”
The stare continued.
“Well, you are a lively one,” muttered Saxe. “Here, I’ll have another try at you. ‘Wollen Sie mir.’ Let’s see: ‘wollen Sie mir’—what’s ‘have the goodness to tell me which way the guide and Mr Dale went?’—You don’t understand? No more do I how you can stand there like an ugly bit of rustic carving. I say, stupid! Can you understand that? Oh, I’m as stupid as he is. Get out of the way, old wooden wisdom, and let’s find your master.”
Just at that moment voices fell upon the lad’s ear, evidently coming from a rough building formed of pine logs built up log-hut fashion.
He hurried towards it, and found old Andregg standing at the door looking in, but ready to turn and salute him with a pleasant smile and the friendly “good morning” of the Swiss people.
“Ah, Saxe! that you?” said Dale, who was busy with Melchior repacking some of the things which had been brought up the valley by Pierre during their absence. “Had a good night’s rest?”
“Yes. But why didn’t you call me when you got up?”
“I did, and so did Melchior; but you were so sound that I thought I’d let you sleep. Well, all the traps are right, and I’ve been packing up what we want to take.”
“Where?”
“Into the heart of the mountains.”
“And when do you start?”
“As soon as ever we have done breakfast and put together a good supply of food. Had your bath?”
“No. I meant to go with you.”
“Go and have it, and by that time we shall be ready for breakfast.”
Saxe went off rather dissatisfied, towel in hand, to pass their landlord’s wife and receive a nod and smile. Then he went on towards the place which he had visited before; and now, one by one, the cold-looking peaks began to turn rosy and brighten, the scene changing so rapidly to orange and gold that Saxe forgot his dissatisfied feelings, and at last stopped to look round in admiration, then in dismay, and at last in something approaching rage; for not a dozen yards behind him was the heavy, stolid face of Pierre, his mouth looking as if it had not been shut since he spoke to him.
The man had stopped when Saxe stopped, and he continued his heavy stare.
“Oh! I do wish I had paid more attention to my jolly old French and German at school,” muttered Saxe, as the man’s stare quite worried him. “I wonder what ‘be off’ is? Allez-vous en he would not understand. ‘Gehen!’ That’s ‘to go.’ But you can’t say ‘to go’ to a fellow, when you want him to be off. And you can’t say ‘go to,’ because gehen’s only one word. I know: ‘Gehen sie Jericho!’ I’ll let that off at him if he follows me any farther.”
Saxe nodded at the man, said “Morgen,” and went on.
“‘Morgen!’ Well, that’s ‘good morning.’ He must understand that; but I don’t believe he understands it as we do when one says ‘good morning’ to a fellow and means he’s to go. Oh! I say, what are you following me for? I know. He is a dirty-looking beggar. He’s coming for a wash. But after me, please, mein herr. I’ll have first go. Ugh! I’d rather have a bath after a pig.”
Saxe went on rapidly; but the man still followed, walking when he did, and timing his pace to keep up; stopping when he did, and provoking such a feeling of irritation in the English lad, that he suddenly faced round and fired the speech he had prepared, but with lingual additions which ornamented and certainly obscured the meaning.
“Here, I say! you, sir!” he cried: “old what’s-your-name—Pierre? ‘gehen Jericho!’”
The man still stared.
“I say, ‘gehen Jericho!’ and if you will, ‘danke schön,’ and good luck to you. Oh, I say, do shut that ugly mouth of yours. What’s the good of keeping it open if you’re not going to speak! There’s no breakfast here.”
Pierre still stared, and Saxe swung round again and went on.
“It’s too bad to be bothered by a foreigner like him,” he muttered. “I meant to have a regular natural shower-bath,”—he glanced up at the beautiful spray fall beyond him as he said this to himself—“but now I can’t have it, with this fellow watching me, and it’ll only mean a scrub and rub.”
He stopped and turned round again, to find Pierre in his old position just the same distance behind.
“I tell you what it is, old chap: if you don’t shut up that mouth, I shall be tempted to pitch a round stone into it; and if it wasn’t for fear of getting up war between England and Switzerland, I’d come and punch your head. Here, I say! Do you hear? Be off!”
Pierre stared.
“Oh! I know what you are,” grumbled Saxe: “you’re a cretin—an idiot. I suppose there are lots of you in the valleys. Here—hi! Catch!”
Saxe took a twenty-cent nickel coin from his pocket, and took aim.
“I’ll pitch it right into his mouth,” he said to himself. “There you are, old chap! Don’t swallow it!”
He threw the coin so truly, that if Pierre had stood still it would, in all probability, have gone where it was aimed. But the man’s action was as quick as that of a monkey. With one sharp dash of the hand he caught the piece, scowled as he found that it was not half a florin, and then thrust it into his pocket and stared.
“Oh my!” muttered Saxe as he went on; “he’s worse than that lost dog, who came and said to me that I was his master, and that he’d never leave me as long as I lived. I hope this chap isn’t going to follow me all the time we’re here.”
He stopped once more.
“I say, old chap, do you want anything?”
No answer but the stolid stare.
“Don’t you know that it’s very rude? Bah! I might as well discuss Euclid with old Gros. Just you wait till I’ve had my tub and got back to breakfast, and if I don’t set old Melchior at you I’m a Dutchman.”
Fully determined to take no more notice of the man, Saxe went on to the pool, had a comfortable wash in the sparkling water, which was invigorating to a degree, scrubbed himself dry, and all the time battled hard with an intense desire to throw stones at Pierre, who stood watching every act some ten yards away.
“Thank you,” said Saxe at last, as he opened a pocket-comb, and began to use it to his wet hair: “I’ve quite done, thank you; but if I might give you a bit of advice, I wouldn’t wash much this morning. Do it by degrees. If you made yourself quite clean, you might catch cold; and besides, the cows and goats wouldn’t know you. ‘Morgen’ once more.”
Saxe started to return, leaving his stolid companion behind and fully expecting to hear him splashing in the pool; but two minutes later he exclaimed:
“No fear of his catching cold or frightening the cows. I don’t believe he has had a wash for a month. Why, if he isn’t following me again! Well, he shall run.”
It was not a very satisfactory place for running, encumbered as it was with stones; but Saxe was as active as most lads of his age, and he started off dodging in and out among huge blocks of granite, leaping from smooth glacier ground rock to rock, making good speed over the patches of level grass and whin, and sending the blood coursing through his veins in the bright morning air; but to his intense annoyance he found that his activity was nothing to that of the heavy, dirty-looking being who kept up easily close to his heels, for every now and then the man leaped from rock to rock as surely as a goat. But growing a little out of breath, and thinking at last that it was of no use to tire himself so soon in the morning, the boy slowly settled down into a walk just as a loud jodel came echoing from the sheltered hollow where the chalet stood.
“Hallo!” said Saxe, whose good humour came back at the thoughts connected with that cry. “There’s old Melk ringing the breakfast bell;” and once more he stopped, placed his hand to the side of his mouth, and jodelled.
“There, old chap, what do you think of that?” he said, looking back at Pierre, who stood rooted there with quite a different expression upon his countenance. The heavy, vacant look had given way to one of utter astonishment, wonder flashed from his eyes, and as Saxe grasped the reason he swung himself round in dudgeon.
“Oh, you ignorant donkey!” he muttered: “it was as good a jodel as old Melk’s. I said you were an idiot, and this proves it: never heard an Englishman jodel before?”
Five minutes after he was enjoying the steaming hot coffee and delicious milk, butter, eggs and bread, discussing—often with his mouth too fall—the plans of the coming day’s work.
Chapter Eighteen.Saxe has Suspicions.“Do we go the same way?” said Saxe, as they started up the track out of the valley, Gros far more heavily laden this time—having, beside food enough for some days, a handy tent just large enough to shelter three; waterproof sheet, rugs, ice-axes, and a coil of new English rope which made the guide’s eyes glisten.“No, herr,” Melchior answered—“only for a short distance. Then we shall strike up to the east and go over the Carvas Pass into the Urs Thal.”“Urseren?” said Dale quickly.“Oh no, herr! not a bleak green hollow like that, but a wild ravine in the heart of the mountain. It lies next but one to the valley beyond the peak you climbed.”“Ah! that sounds better. Is it much visited?”“Never, herr, except by the chamois hunters, and very seldom by them.”“And you think we shall find what I want there?”“I cannot say, herr. Such crystals as you seek are not often discovered. They are very rare. But we shall see. Steady, Gros, steady! Don’t hurry, boy. Slow and sure: these stones are slippery.”“Slippery! Yes,” cried Dale, stepping forward quickly, and then giving a glance up to right and left at the walls of rock rising on either side. “Look at this, Saxe: we must not pass things like these without notice. Wait a minute, Melchior.”“Yes, herr; but there are bigger and smoother pieces farther up the valley.”“Do they extend far?”“Right up to the top of the pass, herr, and down the other side.”Saxe looked over at the huge mass of smoothly polished stone across which the mule had been picking its way, taking longer steps to get its hoofs on the narrow cracks and places where veins of a softer kind of rock had in the course of ages corroded away.“Why, I thought you said that very few people came along here?” said Saxe suddenly, as Dale bent down here and there to examine the stone.“I did, herr. Nobody uses this pass. There is no need. It is very difficult, and leads away up to the everlasting snow.”“Then, Melchior, how is it that the stones are worn so much?”The guide shook his head.“It is as if a river had run along here,” he said. “I suppose it is the rain that has slowly worn it so.”“No,” said Dale, with the voice of authority, “it is the ice.”“No, herr; there is no ice here. A great deal of snow comes down from the great stock up yonder, and from the valley between Piz Accio and Piz Nero, here on the right—avalanches of snow. We could not walk along here in March; it would be madness. But it soon wastes, and is washed away.”“No, Melchior, it is not snow or water that has smoothed all this, but ice. There must have been a huge glacier all along here.”The guide shook his head.“Look, man,” cried Dale, “it is written on the stones;” and he pointed to those beneath them, and then to others high up, which presented the same appearance.“The stones and rocks are worn smooth, herr; but I never heard my father or grandfather speak of ice in this valley.”“No,” said Dale quietly, “and your grandfather never heard his ancestors speak of it, nor they in turn, right back to the most remote times of history; but, all the same, a huge glacier must have filled the whole of this valley, sixty or seventy feet above where we stand.”“A very long time ago, then, herr.”“Who can say how many ages? Glaciers shrink and melt away in time. The one in the other valley has retired a good deal.”“Ah, yes, herr—hundreds of yards. Old people say it once came nearly to Andregg’s chalet.”“To be sure; and how do the rocks look where it has retired?”“Rubbed smooth, like this, herr.”“Of course; and there is no denying this fact. It must have been a mighty glacier indeed.”They went after the mule up the valley, content to follow the animal’s guidance; and invariably, as Melchior pointed out, Gros picked out the best path. As they went right on the valley contracted, and the sides, which towered up more and more perpendicularly, displayed the peculiar, smooth, polished look, just as if masses of stone had constantly ground against their sides.“Now, Saxe, look here,” cried Dale, suddenly pausing by a great mass of grey stone. “Here is a proof that I am right.”“Is it? I don’t see.”“Do you, Melchior?”“No, herr. The stone is very big.”“Yes. How did it come here?”“Oh, it must have rolled down from the rock up yonder.”“If it had rolled down from the rock up yonder, it would have been a piece of that rock!”“Of course, herr. Here are plenty of pieces,” and he touched them with the handle of his ice-axe.“Yes, you are right,” said Dale, picking up a great fragment; “and you can see this is the same kind of stone as that which towers up here over our heads.”“Yes, herr.”“But this great block is a different kind of stone, is it not!”Melchior looked at the vast mass, and said at once:“Yes, herr, of course. It is the grey hard stone that they use for building bridges.”“Well, where did it come from! There is none up here to right or left.”“No, herr—none.”“It could not have been brought here by man.”Melchior laughed.“No; a hundred horses could not have dragged it along a hard road.”“But it has been brought here, you see, all the same. Now, where is the nearest place where we could find stone like that!”“Oh, on the Domberg, herr, at the head of the pass. We shall go beneath it six hours from here.”“Exactly, Melchior,” cried Dale. “That proves what I say. This huge mass of granite must have fallen from the Domberg on to the glacier which once filled this limestone valley, and have been gradually carried down and left here. Such a glacier as the one which polished all these rocks could easily have brought down that block; and when in bygone ages the ice melted, this block was left here. I dare say we shall find more like it.”“Oh yes, herr, there are many,” said Melchior, thoughtfully examining the stone and then picking up other pieces to compare with it. “The herr’s words seem like truth, but I should never have thought of that.”“It took, too, long thought and study of some of our greatest men to find it out,” said Dale, “and I am glad to have come to a valley which shows all we have read so plainly.”“Stop! take care!” shouted Melchior, as a strange rushing sound was heard high up on their right; and directly after a large stone came bounding down the slope, fell on the smooth rocks before them, and smashed to atoms.Melchior stood looking up, shading his eyes.“That is curious,” he said thoughtfully. “I do not know why that stone should have fallen.”“Loosened by the frost, man.”“No, herr. It could not have come from high enough. There is no ice up there. You have to pass another valley first. The high mountain is beyond it, and the stones would fall into the next valley.”“It must have been loosened, then, by the rain.”“Perhaps, herr; but it is more likely that a goat— No, there are no goats pastured so far up as this, and no man could be travelling up there. Herr, would you like to shoot a chamois?”“Indeed I should; but we have no gun.”“No, herr, I forgot: we have no gun. But that must have been a chamois. We are getting into the wild region where they live, though this is low down for them.”“But surely,” said Dale, “they would get no pasture higher up?”“Only in patches, herr. They have been so persecuted by the hunters that they live constantly amongst the ice and snow and in the most solitary spots. But I cannot understand about that stone falling.”“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Saxe. “It did not hit either of us, and you said they often fell in the mountains.”“Yes herr, but not like that.”They went on for the next two hours in silence, while the pass they were following grew more and more wild, but it opened out a little during the next hour, but only to contract again. And here, in a secluded place beneath one of the vast walls of rock which shut them in, and beside a tiny rivulet which came bubbling and foaming down, the guide suggested a short halt and refreshment.Dale agreed, and Saxe doubly agreed, helping to lift the pannier from the mule’s back, when the patient animal indulged in a roll, drank a little water, and then began to browse on such tender shoots and herbage as it could find.The bread and cheese were produced, and all were seated enjoying their alfresco meal, when once more from up to their right a stone as big as a man’s head came crashing down, to fall not far away. So near was it that it startled the mule, who trotted a little on out of danger before beginning again to graze.Melchior had sprung to his feet at once, leaped away for a short distance, and stood shading his eyes again, and scanning the rocky face of the precipice on their right—that is, just above their heads.“Well, what do you make of it?” cried Dale,—“a landslip?”“No, herr; there is no landslip.”“Is it the advance-guard of an avalanche?”“Without snow, herr? No.”“Come and eat your bread and cheese, Melk,” cried Saxe; “it is only a loose stone tumbled down, and no one was hit.”“But I cannot eat, herr, with the knowledge that some one is hurling down stones upon our heads. Do you know that either of those falling stones would have killed us?”“Yes, but they did not hit us,” said Saxe.“But surely there is no one up there to hurl down stones?” said Dale.“I don’t know, herr,” said the guide, shaking his head.“But you said you thought it was a chamois,” cried Saxe.“I did, herr, but I’m afraid I was wrong. I am not a believer in such things; but some of our people would say that the spirits of the mountains are displeased with us for coming here, and are throwing stones to drive us back.”“They’re pretty strong, then, to throw such stones as that,” said Saxe, with his mouth full of Swiss cheese.“Yes,” said Dale, looking at the stone which had fallen; “and they take very bad aim—eh, Saxe?”“Awfully: I could do better than that. Why, if I were up there I believe I could hit either of you.”“But it might be only to frighten us,” said Melchior seriously.“Why, Melchior, my man, surely you do not believe in such childish nonsense as that?”“No, herr, not when I have English gentlemen with me; but there are times on the mountains, when I am quite alone and I hear noises that I cannot understand, that I do get fancying strange things, and all the old stories I have heard as a boy come back to me.”“And then you say to yourself, ‘I am a man who puts his trust in reason, and shall not let myself be scared by silly tales.’”“Well, yes, herr, something of the kind,” replied the guide, smiling.“There goes another stone!” cried Saxe, as a smaller one fell about fifty yards farther on.“Yes,” said the guide; “and it is as if somebody were climbing along there, near the edge of the rocks, and sent them down.”“Ah! that’s more like an explanation,” cried Dale, laughing. “Somebody. Yes, you must be right. Somebody with feet and hands, like ourselves. Can you see who it is?”“No, herr,” said Melchior, after a long examination; “and it puzzles me, for who could be climbing along up there?”Dale shrugged his shoulders. “Impossible to say.”“Yes, herr, it is impossible to say,” said Melchior, who was still watching the precipice; and he was now joined by Saxe. “You see, anybody who wished to get along the pass would come down here.”“But there may be a path up yonder.”“No, herr, there is none, or I should have known of it years ago. I have been up there, and it is so perilous that no one but a bold climber could get along. Well, it is one of the many things I have seen and heard in the mountains that I could not understand. Shall we go on, herr?”“Yes, and we’ll keep a sharp look-out,” said Saxe.“You may,” cried Dale; “but you will find it is something perfectly simple—a stray foot, if the stone is not loosened by the weather.”Ten minutes later they were trudging on over the rough ground, with the valley growing wilder and more strange; presenting, too, plenty of clefts and openings to ravines which Dale felt disposed to stop and explore; but Melchior was always ready with the same form of speech.“Wait, herr,” he said. “It would only be labour in vain. We’ll go on till I get you into the parts where none but the most venturesome guides have been. If crystals are to be found, it will be there.”“What’s that?” said Saxe suddenly, pointing upwards.His companions looked at once in the direction indicated, and saw nothing particular.“Does the young herr mean that strangely shaped thing!”“No, no. Something ran across there hundreds of feet up, where that bit of a ledge is in front of the pale brown patch of stones.”“A marmot, perhaps,” said Melchior; “there are many of the little things about here.”“But this was not a little thing,” cried Saxe impatiently. “It was something big as a goat. I thought it was a man.”“Up yonder, herr?” said Melchior. “No man could run along up there. It would be slow, careful climbing, and a slip would send the climber headlong down into the valley here. From where you say, is quite a thousand feet.”“It must have been a goat, then, or a chamois,” said Saxe.“I cannot say, herr,” replied the guide rather solemnly, and as if he had faith in the possibility of something “no canny” being at the bottom of the mystery.But the rest of their day’s journey, as mapped out for them by Melchior, was achieved without further adventure, and some ten hours after their start in the morning he halted them high up among the mountains, in a little rock amphitheatre, surrounded by peaks, which looked gigantic in the solemn evening light.But the need of the ordinary animal comforts of life took all romantic thought out of Saxe’s brain, and he busily set to work helping to light a fire with the wood the guide had brought. Then, while the kettle was getting hot, all three busied themselves in setting up the tiny tent, anchoring it by means of its lines to stones, as soft a spot as could be found having been selected, for they were far above the pines, and the prospect of getting anything suitable for a bed was very small—even moss proving scarce. However, a rug spread beneath them saved them from some of the asperities of the rocky ground, and after they had partaken of their evening meal and taken a short peep round the huge hollow, which promised admirably for exploration next day, “good nights” were said, and Saxe lay down for his first test of what it would be like to sleep under the shelter of a thin tent eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.“Is there any need to keep watch up here?” asked Dale.“Oh no, herr; not the slightest.”“Then welcome sleep to my weary bones,” said Dale, as he stretched himself out; and soon after, as the stars came out, they were all sleeping peacefully, but only to be aroused just after midnight by a most unearthly scream—a cry loud enough to make every one spring at once to his feet and nearly upset the tiny tent.
“Do we go the same way?” said Saxe, as they started up the track out of the valley, Gros far more heavily laden this time—having, beside food enough for some days, a handy tent just large enough to shelter three; waterproof sheet, rugs, ice-axes, and a coil of new English rope which made the guide’s eyes glisten.
“No, herr,” Melchior answered—“only for a short distance. Then we shall strike up to the east and go over the Carvas Pass into the Urs Thal.”
“Urseren?” said Dale quickly.
“Oh no, herr! not a bleak green hollow like that, but a wild ravine in the heart of the mountain. It lies next but one to the valley beyond the peak you climbed.”
“Ah! that sounds better. Is it much visited?”
“Never, herr, except by the chamois hunters, and very seldom by them.”
“And you think we shall find what I want there?”
“I cannot say, herr. Such crystals as you seek are not often discovered. They are very rare. But we shall see. Steady, Gros, steady! Don’t hurry, boy. Slow and sure: these stones are slippery.”
“Slippery! Yes,” cried Dale, stepping forward quickly, and then giving a glance up to right and left at the walls of rock rising on either side. “Look at this, Saxe: we must not pass things like these without notice. Wait a minute, Melchior.”
“Yes, herr; but there are bigger and smoother pieces farther up the valley.”
“Do they extend far?”
“Right up to the top of the pass, herr, and down the other side.”
Saxe looked over at the huge mass of smoothly polished stone across which the mule had been picking its way, taking longer steps to get its hoofs on the narrow cracks and places where veins of a softer kind of rock had in the course of ages corroded away.
“Why, I thought you said that very few people came along here?” said Saxe suddenly, as Dale bent down here and there to examine the stone.
“I did, herr. Nobody uses this pass. There is no need. It is very difficult, and leads away up to the everlasting snow.”
“Then, Melchior, how is it that the stones are worn so much?”
The guide shook his head.
“It is as if a river had run along here,” he said. “I suppose it is the rain that has slowly worn it so.”
“No,” said Dale, with the voice of authority, “it is the ice.”
“No, herr; there is no ice here. A great deal of snow comes down from the great stock up yonder, and from the valley between Piz Accio and Piz Nero, here on the right—avalanches of snow. We could not walk along here in March; it would be madness. But it soon wastes, and is washed away.”
“No, Melchior, it is not snow or water that has smoothed all this, but ice. There must have been a huge glacier all along here.”
The guide shook his head.
“Look, man,” cried Dale, “it is written on the stones;” and he pointed to those beneath them, and then to others high up, which presented the same appearance.
“The stones and rocks are worn smooth, herr; but I never heard my father or grandfather speak of ice in this valley.”
“No,” said Dale quietly, “and your grandfather never heard his ancestors speak of it, nor they in turn, right back to the most remote times of history; but, all the same, a huge glacier must have filled the whole of this valley, sixty or seventy feet above where we stand.”
“A very long time ago, then, herr.”
“Who can say how many ages? Glaciers shrink and melt away in time. The one in the other valley has retired a good deal.”
“Ah, yes, herr—hundreds of yards. Old people say it once came nearly to Andregg’s chalet.”
“To be sure; and how do the rocks look where it has retired?”
“Rubbed smooth, like this, herr.”
“Of course; and there is no denying this fact. It must have been a mighty glacier indeed.”
They went after the mule up the valley, content to follow the animal’s guidance; and invariably, as Melchior pointed out, Gros picked out the best path. As they went right on the valley contracted, and the sides, which towered up more and more perpendicularly, displayed the peculiar, smooth, polished look, just as if masses of stone had constantly ground against their sides.
“Now, Saxe, look here,” cried Dale, suddenly pausing by a great mass of grey stone. “Here is a proof that I am right.”
“Is it? I don’t see.”
“Do you, Melchior?”
“No, herr. The stone is very big.”
“Yes. How did it come here?”
“Oh, it must have rolled down from the rock up yonder.”
“If it had rolled down from the rock up yonder, it would have been a piece of that rock!”
“Of course, herr. Here are plenty of pieces,” and he touched them with the handle of his ice-axe.
“Yes, you are right,” said Dale, picking up a great fragment; “and you can see this is the same kind of stone as that which towers up here over our heads.”
“Yes, herr.”
“But this great block is a different kind of stone, is it not!”
Melchior looked at the vast mass, and said at once:
“Yes, herr, of course. It is the grey hard stone that they use for building bridges.”
“Well, where did it come from! There is none up here to right or left.”
“No, herr—none.”
“It could not have been brought here by man.”
Melchior laughed.
“No; a hundred horses could not have dragged it along a hard road.”
“But it has been brought here, you see, all the same. Now, where is the nearest place where we could find stone like that!”
“Oh, on the Domberg, herr, at the head of the pass. We shall go beneath it six hours from here.”
“Exactly, Melchior,” cried Dale. “That proves what I say. This huge mass of granite must have fallen from the Domberg on to the glacier which once filled this limestone valley, and have been gradually carried down and left here. Such a glacier as the one which polished all these rocks could easily have brought down that block; and when in bygone ages the ice melted, this block was left here. I dare say we shall find more like it.”
“Oh yes, herr, there are many,” said Melchior, thoughtfully examining the stone and then picking up other pieces to compare with it. “The herr’s words seem like truth, but I should never have thought of that.”
“It took, too, long thought and study of some of our greatest men to find it out,” said Dale, “and I am glad to have come to a valley which shows all we have read so plainly.”
“Stop! take care!” shouted Melchior, as a strange rushing sound was heard high up on their right; and directly after a large stone came bounding down the slope, fell on the smooth rocks before them, and smashed to atoms.
Melchior stood looking up, shading his eyes.
“That is curious,” he said thoughtfully. “I do not know why that stone should have fallen.”
“Loosened by the frost, man.”
“No, herr. It could not have come from high enough. There is no ice up there. You have to pass another valley first. The high mountain is beyond it, and the stones would fall into the next valley.”
“It must have been loosened, then, by the rain.”
“Perhaps, herr; but it is more likely that a goat— No, there are no goats pastured so far up as this, and no man could be travelling up there. Herr, would you like to shoot a chamois?”
“Indeed I should; but we have no gun.”
“No, herr, I forgot: we have no gun. But that must have been a chamois. We are getting into the wild region where they live, though this is low down for them.”
“But surely,” said Dale, “they would get no pasture higher up?”
“Only in patches, herr. They have been so persecuted by the hunters that they live constantly amongst the ice and snow and in the most solitary spots. But I cannot understand about that stone falling.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Saxe. “It did not hit either of us, and you said they often fell in the mountains.”
“Yes herr, but not like that.”
They went on for the next two hours in silence, while the pass they were following grew more and more wild, but it opened out a little during the next hour, but only to contract again. And here, in a secluded place beneath one of the vast walls of rock which shut them in, and beside a tiny rivulet which came bubbling and foaming down, the guide suggested a short halt and refreshment.
Dale agreed, and Saxe doubly agreed, helping to lift the pannier from the mule’s back, when the patient animal indulged in a roll, drank a little water, and then began to browse on such tender shoots and herbage as it could find.
The bread and cheese were produced, and all were seated enjoying their alfresco meal, when once more from up to their right a stone as big as a man’s head came crashing down, to fall not far away. So near was it that it startled the mule, who trotted a little on out of danger before beginning again to graze.
Melchior had sprung to his feet at once, leaped away for a short distance, and stood shading his eyes again, and scanning the rocky face of the precipice on their right—that is, just above their heads.
“Well, what do you make of it?” cried Dale,—“a landslip?”
“No, herr; there is no landslip.”
“Is it the advance-guard of an avalanche?”
“Without snow, herr? No.”
“Come and eat your bread and cheese, Melk,” cried Saxe; “it is only a loose stone tumbled down, and no one was hit.”
“But I cannot eat, herr, with the knowledge that some one is hurling down stones upon our heads. Do you know that either of those falling stones would have killed us?”
“Yes, but they did not hit us,” said Saxe.
“But surely there is no one up there to hurl down stones?” said Dale.
“I don’t know, herr,” said the guide, shaking his head.
“But you said you thought it was a chamois,” cried Saxe.
“I did, herr, but I’m afraid I was wrong. I am not a believer in such things; but some of our people would say that the spirits of the mountains are displeased with us for coming here, and are throwing stones to drive us back.”
“They’re pretty strong, then, to throw such stones as that,” said Saxe, with his mouth full of Swiss cheese.
“Yes,” said Dale, looking at the stone which had fallen; “and they take very bad aim—eh, Saxe?”
“Awfully: I could do better than that. Why, if I were up there I believe I could hit either of you.”
“But it might be only to frighten us,” said Melchior seriously.
“Why, Melchior, my man, surely you do not believe in such childish nonsense as that?”
“No, herr, not when I have English gentlemen with me; but there are times on the mountains, when I am quite alone and I hear noises that I cannot understand, that I do get fancying strange things, and all the old stories I have heard as a boy come back to me.”
“And then you say to yourself, ‘I am a man who puts his trust in reason, and shall not let myself be scared by silly tales.’”
“Well, yes, herr, something of the kind,” replied the guide, smiling.
“There goes another stone!” cried Saxe, as a smaller one fell about fifty yards farther on.
“Yes,” said the guide; “and it is as if somebody were climbing along there, near the edge of the rocks, and sent them down.”
“Ah! that’s more like an explanation,” cried Dale, laughing. “Somebody. Yes, you must be right. Somebody with feet and hands, like ourselves. Can you see who it is?”
“No, herr,” said Melchior, after a long examination; “and it puzzles me, for who could be climbing along up there?”
Dale shrugged his shoulders. “Impossible to say.”
“Yes, herr, it is impossible to say,” said Melchior, who was still watching the precipice; and he was now joined by Saxe. “You see, anybody who wished to get along the pass would come down here.”
“But there may be a path up yonder.”
“No, herr, there is none, or I should have known of it years ago. I have been up there, and it is so perilous that no one but a bold climber could get along. Well, it is one of the many things I have seen and heard in the mountains that I could not understand. Shall we go on, herr?”
“Yes, and we’ll keep a sharp look-out,” said Saxe.
“You may,” cried Dale; “but you will find it is something perfectly simple—a stray foot, if the stone is not loosened by the weather.”
Ten minutes later they were trudging on over the rough ground, with the valley growing wilder and more strange; presenting, too, plenty of clefts and openings to ravines which Dale felt disposed to stop and explore; but Melchior was always ready with the same form of speech.
“Wait, herr,” he said. “It would only be labour in vain. We’ll go on till I get you into the parts where none but the most venturesome guides have been. If crystals are to be found, it will be there.”
“What’s that?” said Saxe suddenly, pointing upwards.
His companions looked at once in the direction indicated, and saw nothing particular.
“Does the young herr mean that strangely shaped thing!”
“No, no. Something ran across there hundreds of feet up, where that bit of a ledge is in front of the pale brown patch of stones.”
“A marmot, perhaps,” said Melchior; “there are many of the little things about here.”
“But this was not a little thing,” cried Saxe impatiently. “It was something big as a goat. I thought it was a man.”
“Up yonder, herr?” said Melchior. “No man could run along up there. It would be slow, careful climbing, and a slip would send the climber headlong down into the valley here. From where you say, is quite a thousand feet.”
“It must have been a goat, then, or a chamois,” said Saxe.
“I cannot say, herr,” replied the guide rather solemnly, and as if he had faith in the possibility of something “no canny” being at the bottom of the mystery.
But the rest of their day’s journey, as mapped out for them by Melchior, was achieved without further adventure, and some ten hours after their start in the morning he halted them high up among the mountains, in a little rock amphitheatre, surrounded by peaks, which looked gigantic in the solemn evening light.
But the need of the ordinary animal comforts of life took all romantic thought out of Saxe’s brain, and he busily set to work helping to light a fire with the wood the guide had brought. Then, while the kettle was getting hot, all three busied themselves in setting up the tiny tent, anchoring it by means of its lines to stones, as soft a spot as could be found having been selected, for they were far above the pines, and the prospect of getting anything suitable for a bed was very small—even moss proving scarce. However, a rug spread beneath them saved them from some of the asperities of the rocky ground, and after they had partaken of their evening meal and taken a short peep round the huge hollow, which promised admirably for exploration next day, “good nights” were said, and Saxe lay down for his first test of what it would be like to sleep under the shelter of a thin tent eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.
“Is there any need to keep watch up here?” asked Dale.
“Oh no, herr; not the slightest.”
“Then welcome sleep to my weary bones,” said Dale, as he stretched himself out; and soon after, as the stars came out, they were all sleeping peacefully, but only to be aroused just after midnight by a most unearthly scream—a cry loud enough to make every one spring at once to his feet and nearly upset the tiny tent.