CHAPTER NINETEEN.
A STRANGE INCIDENT.
It was very dark and cold, the stars gleamed frostily overhead, and thenearest mountain peak stood out weird-looking and strange against thepurple sky, as the little party stood together listening, and thenquestioning each other in an awe-stricken whisper.
"You heard it, Saxe?" said Dale.
"Heard it? Yes, it was horrible. What was it, Melchior?"
The guide shook his head, and then took up his ice-axe for a protectionagainst whatever the object might be that had alarmed them, as he beganto peer cautiously in all directions.
"It woke me up with a start," whispered Saxe.
"Yes; the most unearthly cry I ever heard. It must have been some kindof owl, and its shriek sounded the more terrible from being up in thisland of echoes."
"Then if it was a bird there is nothing to be afraid of," said Saxe."It gave me the shivers."
"It was startling. Found anything, Melchior?"
"No, herr; and I'm puzzled."
"We think it was a bird."
"No, herr; that was no bird."
"Could it have been an animal?"
"There are no animals up at this height, but chamois and marmots. Theycould not have made such a cry."
"No," said Dale thoughtfully.
"Stop!" said the guide, as if he had caught at an idea; "could it havebeen a bear?"
"No-o-o!" cried Saxe. "It was a shriek, not a growl."
"You are right, herr," said the guide. "Bears are very scarce now, andI do not think one of them could make such a noise unless he were beingkilled. This is another mystery of the mountains that I cannot explain.Some guides would say it was the mountain spirit."
"But you do not, Melchior?"
"No, herr; I believe now that all these old stories ate fables. Shallwe lie down again to rest?"
"I want to rest," said Dale; "but it seems impossible to lie downexpecting to be roused up by such an unearthly cry."
"Then the English herr thinks it was unearthly?"
"Oh, I don't mean that," said Dale hastily. "The mountains are full ofawful things, but not of that kind. Well, Saxe, shall we lie down?"
"What's the good?" replied the boy: "we couldn't go to sleep if we did.I say, isn't it cold?"
"Get one of the rugs to put round you."
"Shall we have a good look round, first, herr?"
"No, don't," said Saxe. "It is so dark, and there are so many stonesabout. Yes, let's go," he added suddenly, as the thought flashed acrosshis brain that if he declined his companions would think him cowardly.
Just at that moment, from out of the darkness, about fifty yards away,the cry rose again, but short and sudden, like a bit of the fag end ofthe shriek which had roused them from their sleep.
"There!" cried Saxe.
"Yes, herr--there!" said the guide, and he began to laugh silently."Why, it quite startled me. I ought to have known."
"What was it?" cried Dale, as the curious wild cry seemed still to beringing in his ears.
"What was it, herr? Don't you know?"
"Of course not."
"It was Gros."
"The old mule?" cried Saxe. "Oh, I wish I was close by him with astick."
"I suppose he feels the cold. No, stop: it can't be that," added theguide, as if suddenly struck by an idea. "There must be a reason forhis crying out."
He walked away hurriedly into the darkness, and they followed, to hearhim talking directly after to the mule, which responded with a lowwhinnying sound.
"Perhaps the poor brute has slipped into a hole or a crack in the rock,"suggested Dale; but as they drew nigh they could see the mule standingout dimly in the darkness, and the guide close by his neck.
"Have we overdriven him?" said Saxe. "Is he ill?"
"You couldn't overdrive Gros, herr," said Melchior quietly.
"Why not?"
"You heard what old Andregg said to us, Gros would not be overdriven,herr; he would lie down when he had done as much work as he felt wasenough."
"What's the matter, then? Is he ill?"
"No, herr; his coat is smooth and dry."
"I know," cried Saxe.
"You know, herr?"
"Yes; of course, he has been trying to find enough to eat amongst thesestones, and there is scarcely anything. He is hungry, and crying outfor supper."
"Oh no, herr. I showed him where he could find plenty of green shoots,and I gave him half a loaf of black bread as well before we had ourmeal."
"Then he wants kicking for waking us up like this."
"No, herr," said the guide drily; "and it is bad work to kick Gros. Heis a very clever animal, and can kick much harder than a man. Iremember Pierre kicking him once, and he kicked back and nearly brokethe man's leg."
"Then don't kick him. But what is the matter with him?"
"I cannot tell you, herr, unless some one has been here since we laydown to sleep."
"But, surely, Melchior, if any one came he would have seen the tent andspoken."
"Yes, herr, one would think so, for out in the mountains here we are allfriends. We should have given him to eat and drink just as we shouldhave expected it if we came upon a camp."
"Well," said Dale, "it was a false alarm, and I'm going to lie downagain. Come, Saxe."
"But suppose--"
"No, no; we have so much hard work to do to-morrow that we want all therest we can get. There is nothing to suppose, is there, Melchior?"
"Oh no, herr; and besides, if the herr likes, I will sit up and watch."
"There is no need. Come: sleep."
"I can't sleep," thought Saxe, as he lay down once more in the shelterof the tent. "I shall be listening, and expecting to hear that cryagain."
But his head had hardly touched the rug before he was breathing heavily;and he slept without moving till a hand was laid upon his shoulder; andas he opened his eyes he saw that it was daybreak and that the darkfigure bending over him was the guide.
"Time to get up?"
"Yes, herr--quick!" was the reply. "Will you wake up the herr?"
"Eh? Yes: all right, Melchior," cried Dale. "Hah! what a splendidsleep! It does not seem five minutes since I lay down."
"Will you come out, sir?" said the guide, in rather a peculiar manner.
"Yes, of course. Eh? Is anything the matter?"
"I don't quite know, herr," replied the guide, as they stood together;"but it is clear some one has been here in the night."
"Then that is what frightened the mule?"
"Yes, herr; that is what made him cry out. Look!"
"What at?" said Dale quietly, as they now stood beside the ashes of thelast night's fire.
"Cannot the herr see?"
Dale looked sharply round, and Saxe followed his example.
"I see nothing," said the former.
"Nor I," said Saxe; "only that the bits of burnt wood seem to have beenkicked about."
"That's it, herr," cried Melchior; "and look there!"
He bent down, and pointed.
"Ah! look, Saxe!" cried Dale: "some one's footmark in the pine ash!"
"'Tisn't mine," said Saxe: "it's too big."
"Nor mine," said Dale. "An English boot does not leave a print likethat. It's yours, Melchior. A false alarm."
"No, herr--no false alarm," said the guide; and he raised one foot so asto expose the sole. "Look at the open way in which I nail my boots--with big nails, so that they shall not slip on the rock or ice. Thatfootprint is not mine."
"No: you are right. Then whose could it be?"
Melchior shook his head.
"Some one must have been prowling round the tent in the night."
"It must have been one of Melk's spirits--the one who threw stones at usyesterday. I say, Melk, they wear very big boots."
The guide smiled.
"Yes, herr, it was some one with big boots; and I do not understand it."
Dale's first idea--a natural
one under the circumstances--was thatplunder was the object; and he said so.
"No, herr; I do not think there is anybody about here who would steal."
"I'm very glad to hear it," said Dale: "but let's see if anything hasgone."
The guide said nothing--only looked on while an examination was made.
"No," said Dale; "I do not miss anything. Yes: my little binocular ismissing!"
"No, herr; you put it inside the big basket last night."
"Yes, here it is," cried Saxe.
"Then you are right, Melchior: it could not have been robbery."
"No, herr, it is strange; but I will light the fire and get breakfast."
As he spoke he began kindling some dry stuff he had collected, andshortly after the coffee-pot was promising to boil. Then some bacon wassliced and frizzled, and the appetising odour soon made the memories ofthe night alarm pass away in the thoughts of the excellent breakfast,which was finished while the pass in which they were seated was stillgrey, though the mountain peaks looked red-hot in the coming sunshine.
"Well, I'm not going to let an incident like that interfere with ourprogress, Melchior. Where do you propose going next?"
"Up whichever thal the herr chooses, and then up the mountain."
"And not quite over the pass?"
"No, herr. We are in the highest part here, and we may come uponcrystals in any of these solitary peaks."
"Very well; then we'll make a start at any time you like. Do we comeback here?"
"No, herr. I propose that we take the mule on to the foot of the GreatOberweiss glacier, an hour from here. There is good camping ground, andthen we will go up the mountain by the side of the ice meer."
"And to shake off our stone-throwing friend," said Dale. "Good. Wewill, and will keep a better look-out for the crevasses this time--eh,Saxe?"
"Yes, and we can try the new rope."
A few minutes sufficed for saddling up the mule with his load, and thenthey started once more farther into the wilds, in all the gloriousbeauty of the early summer morning, Melchior leading them in and outthrough such a labyrinth of cracks and rifts that after some hours'walking, Saxe glanced at his leader.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering how we could find our way back."
Melchior laughed.
"Oh, easily enough, herr."
"But I couldn't," cried Saxe.
"No, herr. That shows the use of a guide. But I could have come aneasier way, only I am taking a short cut. We are a thousand feet higherthan when we started. Look, herr: go on by that shelf of rock: it isperfectly safe. Then come back and tell me what you see."
Saxe started forward, from the ragged slope they were ascending; and aminute or two after passing quite a mossy niche, which ran some forty orfifty yards right into the mountain, to where a silvery-veil-likecascade fell, he stopped short, threw up his hands, and then turned andsignalled to Dale.
"What is it?" cried the latter, as he hurried to the boy's side. "Hah!"
He wanted no explanation, for they were standing at the edge of aprecipice, gazing down at another huge glacier, which glittered in therays of the morning sun--a vast chaos of ice whose cracks and shadowswere of a vivid blue; and as they gazed up towards the point where itsuddenly curved round an immense buttress, there beyond, peak afterpeak, as far as eye could reach, stood out in the clear air, and allseeming to rise out of the fields and beds of snow which clung aroundthem and filled every ravine and chasm running up from their feet.
"Oh!" cried Saxe--"did you ever see anything so beautiful? Why, theplace is all crystals!"
"Grand!" said Dale slowly, as he stood rapt in a reverie of wonder andadmiration at the scene before him. "Why, Saxe, we couldn't have had abetter guide! We must make a halt here, and begin to explore."
"But you'll go up another mountain?"
"Didn't you have enough of the last?"
"No!" cried the boy excitedly. "I know I was very stupid and clumsy,and wasn't half so brave as I should have liked to be; but I long tobegin again."
"Then you shall."
"When? Now?"
"Too late in the day. We'll explore about here first, and if theweather is right we'll make a start to-morrow."
"Oh!" said Saxe in a disappointed tone.
"There--you'll have plenty of work to-day, for we must go down on thiswonderful glacier and examine the sides. Look! there's what they call amill there."
"A mill? I don't see it."
"Moulin. No, no--not a building. That fall, where the water rushesinto the crevasse you can see. There--up yonder, a quarter of a mileaway."
At that moment there was a tremendous crash on their left; and, as theyturned sharply, it was to see from far below them what appeared to be acloud of smoke rising and wreathing round, full of tiny specks ofsilver, and over which an iris glimmered for a few moments, and fadedaway with the ice dust caused by the toppling over of a huge serac,which had crushed half a dozen others in its fall.
"Come along. Let's arrange about our camp; and then we'll take hammersand a chisel, and begin to examine the side of this glacier at once."
They turned back. Saxe quitting the glorious view of the crystal silverland, as he mentally dubbed it, very unwillingly.
To his surprise, as they descended they found Gros on his back, in agully full of sand and stones, snorting, flapping his ears and throwingup his legs, as he fell over first on one side, then on the other, inthe full enjoyment of a good roll; while as they advanced it was to findMelchior in the sheltered nook setting up the tent, after rolling somehuge pieces of rock to the four corners ready to secure the ropes; forthere was no spot in that stony ravine where a peg of iron, let aloneone of wood, could be driven in.
"Hah! a capital spot, Melchior."
"Yes, herr, well sheltered from three winds, and there is plenty of goodwater; but we shall have to be sparing with the wood. To-morrow I'lltake Gros, and go down to the nearest pine forest and bring up a load."
"Then you mean to stay here?"
"For a few days, herr. You have peaks all round which you can climb.There is the glacier, and there are bare mountain precipices andcrevices where you may find that of which you are in search."
"Yes," said Dale, as he looked back out of the narrow opening of thegash in the mountain which the guide had chosen for their shelter; "Ithink this place will do."
"Then the herr is satisfied?"
"Well, yes, for the present. Now, then, leave what you are doing, andwe'll descend to the glacier at once."
"Yes, herr. One moment. I'll hang up the lanthorn and the new Englishrope here. The glass may be kicked against and broken."
He suspended the English-made stout glass lanthorn to the littleridge-pole; and then, resuming his jacket, he threw the coil of ropeover his shoulder, took his ice-axe, Dale and Saxe taking theirs, allnew and bright, almost as they had left the manufacturer's, and startedat once for the shelf from which the grand view of the snow-cladmountains had met their gaze. After proceeding along this a shortdistance, Melchior stopped, climbed out upon a projecting point, andexamined the side of the precipice.
"We can get down here, herr," he said; and, setting the example, hedescended nimbly from ledge to ledge, pausing at any difficult place tolend a hand or point out foothold, till they were half-way down, whenthe ledges and crevices by which they had descended suddenly ceased, andthey stood upon a shelf from which there seemed to be no furtherprogression, till, as if guided by the formation, Melchior crept to thevery end, peered round an angle of the rock, and then came back.
"No," he said--"not that way: the other end."
He passed his two companions, and, going to the farther part, climbed upa few feet, and then passed out of their sight.
"This way, gentlemen!" he shouted; and upon joining him they found thathe had hit upon quite an easy descent to the ice.
This proved to be very different to the glacier they had first examined.It was far more precipitou
s in its descent, with the consequence thatit was greatly broken up into blocks, needles and overhanging seracs.These were so eaten away beneath that it seemed as if a breath wouldsend them thundering down.
"Not very safe--eh, Melchior?" said Dale.
"No, herr; we must not venture far from the edge."
This vast glacier had also shrunk, leaving from ten to twenty feet ofsmoothly polished rock at the side--that is, at the foot of theprecipitous gorge down which it ran--and thus forming a comparativelyeasy path for the travellers, who climbed upwards over the roundedmasses, stopping from time to time where the ice curved over, leavingspaces between it and its rocky bed, down which Saxe gazed into a deepblue dimness, and listened to the murmuring roar of many waters coursingalong beneath.
Suddenly Dale uttered an ejaculation, and, taking a hammer from hisbelt, began to climb up the rocky side of the valley.
Melchior saw the place for which he was making, and uttered a gruntindicative of satisfaction.
The spot beneath which Dale stopped was only a dark-looking crack; butas Saxe went nearer he could see that it was edged with dark-colouredcrystals set closely together, and resembling in size and shape theteeth of a small saw.
Dale began to probe the crack directly with the handle of his ice-axe,to find that the crevice gradually widened; and on applying his mouththere and shouting, he could feel that it was a great opening.
"There ought to be big crystals in there, Melchior," cried Daleexcitedly.
"Yes, herr; but without you brought powder and blasting tools you couldnot get at them, and if you did blast you would break them up."
Dale said nothing, but laying down his ice-axe he took hammer and chiseland began to chip energetically at the hard rock, while the otherslooked on till he ceased hammering, with a gesture full of impatience.
"You are right, Melchior," he said; "I shall never widen it like this."
"Why try, herr? I can show you holes already large enough for us to getin."
"You know for certain of such places?"
"I cannot tell you exactly where they are now, but I have seen them inthe mountains!"
"In the mountains?"
"Well, then, right in these mountains, I feel sure. Let us go on andtry. If we do not find a better place we know where this is, and cantry it another time."
"Go on, then," said Dale, rather reluctantly; and they continuedclimbing, with the rock towering up on one side, the ice curving over onthe other, and rising in the middle of the glacier to a series of cragsand waves and smooth patches full of cracks, in which lay blocks ofgranite or limestone that had been tumbled down from the sides or far uptoward the head of the valley ages before.
They had not progressed far before the guide pointed out another crackin the rock fringed with gem-like crystals, and then another andanother, but all out of reach without chipping steps in the stone--ofcourse a most arduous task.
"All signs that we are in the right formation, Saxe," said Dale morehopefully, after they had toiled on up the side of the glacier for abouta couple of hours; and they stood watching Melchior, who had mounted onto the ice to see if he could find better travelling for them.
"Yes," he shouted--"better here;" and the others climbed up and joinedhim, to find that the surface was much smoother, and that the broken-upmasses of ice were far less frequent.
"Plenty of crevasses, herr," said Melchior; "but they are all to beseen. There is no snow to bridge them over."
He stood looking down one of the blue cracks zigzagged across theglacier, and Saxe could not help a shudder as he gazed down into itsblue depths and listened to the roar of water which came up from below.
But it was not more than a yard in width, and in turn they leaped acrossand continued their way.
Then they had to pass another, half the width, and others that were merefissures, which Dale said were slowly splitting; but soon after steppingacross the last of these, further progress over the ice was barred by agreat chasm four or five yards from edge to edge, along which they hadto skirt till its end could be turned and their journey continued.
"Can we take to the rocks again?" said Dale, looking anxiously towardthe almost perpendicular sides of the valley up which they slowly madetheir way.
"Not yet, herr: I have been watching, and we are still only passing merecrevices in the rock. Hah! now we are coming to the enow, and shallhave to take care."
He pointed with his ice-axe to where, a hundred yards or so farther on,the surface of the ice suddenly changed; but they did not pass at onceon to the snow, for as they neared it they found that they were partedfrom it by another crevasse of about four feet wide.
"We need not go round this, I suppose," said Dale, as he stood peeringdown into its depths--Saxe following his example, and listening to apeculiar hissing rush of water far below.
"No, herr, the leap is so short. Shall I go first?"
"Oh no," said Dale, stepping back and then jumping lightly across, toalight on the snow; "beautiful landing, Saxe. Take a bit of a run."
"Yes," said the boy; and he stepped back also for a few yards, sprangand cleared the gap with a yard or so to spare. "What a place it wouldbe to fall down, though!" said Saxe, as he began to tramp on over thesnow by Dale's side. "I couldn't help thinking so as I flew over it."
"And very stupid of you too! There's no danger in leaping over a dryditch four feet wide, so why should you make a fuss about the samedistance because it is deep?"
Boom!
"Hallo!" said Dale. "That sounded like snow somewhere up in themountains; and by the way, we're on snow now: Melchior ought to rope us.How do we know there are not crevasses close at hand?" He turned tospeak to the guide, and found Saxe standing there staring back."Hallo!" he cried, "where's Melchior?"
"I don't know," faltered Saxe.
"Didn't you see him jump over the crack?"
"No. Didn't you?"
"It was such a trifle, I did not think of it. Good heavens! he has notmet with an accident? Ah, that noise!"
They turned back together for about a hundred yards over the smoothsnow, following their own steps clearly marked in the white surface; andthen stopped short aghast, for the deeply indented place in the snowwhere they had landed in their jump was gone, and in its stead they sawa great triangular-shaped opening widening the crevasse to more thandouble its original dimensions, while just at its edge close to theirfeet there was a peculiar mark, such as would have been made by anice-axe suddenly struck down through the snow to plough its way till itdisappeared over the edge.