Rivers of Ice, Robert Michael Ballantyne [fun to read .txt] 📗

to indifference to these two points. The guides say--and their opinions are corroborated by men of science and Alpine experience--that it is dangerous to meddle with any slope exceeding 30 degrees for several days after a heavy fall, and yet it is certain that slopes exceeding this angle are traversed annually by travellers who are ignorant, or reckless, or both. Did you not say that the slope which you crossed the other day was a steeper angle than this, and the snow on it not more than twenty-four hours' old?"

"Guilty!" exclaimed Lewis, with a sigh.

"I condemn you, then," said Lawrence, with a smile, "to a continuation of this lecture, and, be assured, the punishment is much lighter than you deserve. Listen:--There are three unavoidable dangers in Alpine climbing--"

"Please don't be long on each head," pleaded Lewis, throwing himself back in his bed, while his friend placed the point of each finger of his right hand on a corresponding point of the left, and crossed his legs.

"I won't. I shall be brief--brief as your life is likely to be if you don't attend to me. The three dangers are, as I have said, unavoidable; but two of them may be guarded against; the other cannot. First, there is danger from _falling rocks_. This danger may be styled positive. It hangs over the head like the sword of Damocles. There is no avoiding it except by not climbing at all, for boulders and ice-blocks are perched here, and there, and everywhere, and no one can tell the moment when they shall fall. Secondly, there is danger from crevasses--the danger of tumbling into one when crossing a bridge of snow, and the danger of breaking through a crust of snow which conceals one. This may be called a negative danger. It is reduced to almost nothing if you are tied to your comrade by a rope, and if the leader sounds with his staff as he walks along; but it changes from a negative to a positive danger to the man who is so mad as to go out _alone_. Thirdly, there is danger from new snow on steep slopes, which is positive if you step on it when recently fallen, and when the slope is very steep; but is negative when you allow sufficient time for it to harden. While, however, it is certain that many deaths occur from these three dangers being neglected, it is equally true that the largest number of accidents which occur in the Alps arise chiefly from momentary indiscretions, from false steps, the result of carelessness or self-confidence, and from men attempting to do what is beyond their powers. Men who are too old for such fatigue, and men who, though young, are not sufficiently strong, usually come to grief. I close my lecture with a quotation from the writings of a celebrated mountaineer--`In all cases the man rather than the mountain is at fault.'"

"There is truth in what you say," observed Lewis, rising, with a yawn.

"Nay, but," returned his friend, seriously, "your mother, who is made very anxious by your reckless expeditions, begged me to impress these truths on you. Will you promise me, like a good fellow, to consider them?"

"I promise," said Lewis, becoming serious in his turn, and taking his friend's hand; "but you must not expect sudden perfection to be exemplified in me.--Come, let's go have a talk with Le Croix about his projected expedition after the chamois."

Up in the mountains now,--above some of the clouds undoubtedly, almost 'mong the stars, as Gillie put it,--Lewis wanders in company with Baptist Le Croix, half-forgetful of his promise to Lawrence. Below them lies a world of hills and valleys; above towers a fairy-land of ice, cliff, and cloud. No human habitation is near. The only indications of man's existence are so faint, and so far off in the plains below, that houses are barely visible, and villages look like toys. A sea of cloud floats beneath them, and it is only through gaps in this sea that the terrestrial world is seen. Piercing through it are the more prominent of the Alpine peaks--the dark tremendous obelisk of the Matterhorn towering in one direction, the not less tremendous and far grander head of Mont Blanc looming in another. The sun shines brightly over all, piercing and rendering semi-transparent some of the clouds, gilding the edges and deepening the shadows of others.

"Do you see anything, Le Croix?" asked Lewis, as he reclined on a narrow ledge of rock recovering breath after a fatiguing climb, while his comrade peered intently through a telescope into the recesses of a dark mountain gorge that lay a little below them.

For some moments the hunter made no reply. Presently he closed the glass, and, with an air of satisfaction, said, "Chamois!"

"Where?" asked Lewis, rising eagerly and taking the glass.

Le Croix carefully pointed out the spot but no effort on the part of the inexperienced youth could bring anything resembling the light and graceful form of a chamois into the field of vision.

"Never mind, Le Croix," he said, quickly returning the glass and picking up his rifle; "come along, let's have at them."

"Softly," returned the hunter; "we must get well to leeward of them before we can venture to approach."

"Lead where you will; you'll find me a quiet and unquestioning follower."

The hunter at once turned, and, descending the mountain by a precipice which was so steep that they had in some places to drop from ledge to ledge, at last gained a position where the light air, that floated but scarce moved the clouds, came direct from the spot where the chamois lay. He then turned and made straight towards them. As they advanced the ground became more rugged and precipitous, so that their progress was unavoidably slow, and rendered more so by the necessity that lay on them of approaching their game without noise.

When they had reached a spot where a sheer precipice appeared to render further progress impossible, the hunter stopped and said in a low tone, "Look, they are too far off; a bullet could not reach them."

Lewis craned his neck over the cliff, and saw the chamois grazing quietly on a small patch of green that lay among brown rocks below.

"What's to be done?" he asked anxiously. "Couldn't we try a long shot?"

"Useless. Your eyes are inexperienced. The distance is greater than you think."

"What, then, shall we do?"

Le Croix did not answer. He appeared to be revolving some plan in his mind. Turning at last to his companion, he said--

"I counsel that you remain here. It is a place near to which they must pass if driven by some one from below. I will descend."

"But how descend?" asked Lewis. "I see no path by which even a goat could get down."

"Leave that to me," replied the hunter. "Keep perfectly still till you see them within range. Have your rifle ready; do not fire in haste; there will be time for a slow and sure aim. Most bad hunters owe their ill-luck to haste."

With this advice Le Croix crept quietly round a projecting rock, and, dropping apparently over the precipice, disappeared.

Solitude is suggestive. As long as his companion was with him, Lewis felt careless and easy in mind, but now that he was left alone in one of the wildest and grandest scenes he had yet beheld, he became solemnised, and could not help feeling, that without his guide he would be very helpless in such a place. Being alone in the mountains was not indeed new to him. As we have already said, he had acquired the character of being much too reckless in wandering about by himself; but there was a vast difference between going alone over ground which he had traversed several times with guides in the immediate neighbourhood of Chamouni, and being left in a region to which he had been conducted by paths so intricate, tortuous, and difficult, that the mere effort to trace back in memory even the last few miles of the route confused him.

There was a mysterious stillness, too, about everything around him; and the fogs, which floated in heavy masses above and below, gave a character of changeful wildness to the scenery.

"What a place to get lost in and benighted!" he thought. Then his mind, with that curious capacity for sudden flight, which is one of the chief characteristics of thought, leaped down the precipices, up which he had toiled so slowly, sped away over hill and dale, and landed him in Chamouni at the feet of Nita Horetzki. Once there, he had no desire to move. He kept looking steadily in her pretty face, speculated as to the nature of the charm that rendered it so sweet, wondered what was the cause of the lines of care that at times rippled her smooth white brow, longed to become the sharer of her grief, and her comforter, and pondered the improbability of his ever being in a position to call her Nita--darling Nita--sweetest Nita--exquisite Nita! He was still engaged in creating adjectives at Chamouni when he was brought suddenly back to the Alpine heights by the sound of a shot. It was repeated in a hundred echoes by the surrounding cliffs, as he seized his rifle and gazed over the precipice.

A puff of smoke, hanging like a cloudlet, guided his eyes. Not far in front of it he saw the fawn-like form of a chamois stretched in death upon the ground, while two others were seen bounding with amazing precision and elasticity over the rocks towards him.

He turned at once to an opening among the rocks at his right, for, even to his unpractised eye, it was obviously impossible that anything without wings could approach him in front or at his left.

Coolness and promptitude were characteristics of the youth; so that he sat crouching with the rifle, resting in the palm of his left hand, over one knee, as motionless as if he had been chiselled from the rock against which he leaned; but his natural coolness of deportment could not prevent, though it concealed, a throbbing of anxiety lest the game should pass out of reach, or behind rocks, which would prevent his seeing it. For an instant he half-rose, intending to rush to some more commanding elevation, but remembering the parting advice of Le Croix, he sank down again and remained steady.

Scarcely had he done so when the clatter of bounding hoofs was heard. He knew well that the open space, across which he now felt sure the chamois must pass, was only broad enough to afford the briefest possible time for an aim. He raised the rifle more than half-way to the shoulder. Another instant and a chamois appeared like an arrow shooting athwart the hill-side before him. He fired, and missed! The bullet, however, which had been destined for the heart of the first animal, was caught in the brain of that which followed. It sprang high into the air, and, rolling over several times, lay stretched at full length on the rocks.

We need not pause to describe the rejoicing of the young sportsman over his first chamois, or to detail Lecroix's complimentary observations thereon.

Having deposited their game in a place of safety, the hunter