Fordham's Feud Part 11

"Here, take a nip of this and pull yourself together. That's right," as Scott eagerly seized the proffered refreshment.

And soon the effects were felt. A liberal gulp or two having infused into his system a faint modic.u.m of that artificial courage libellously termed "Dutch," the panic-stricken cleric managed to turn round upon his aerial perch, and began to crawl gingerly back in the same ignominious posture as that in which he had come, stipulating eagerly that his succourer should keep just behind him in order to grab hold of him if he should show the least sign of falling. Wentworth was glad to get rid of him on any terms, and, depositing him in safety under a rock, solemnly enjoined upon him not to move therefrom until they should return.

"Well, Mr Fordham," said Alma, wickedly, "we poor women are not always the ones who give the most trouble, you see."

"No, by Jove, you're not, Miss Wyatt," struck in Gedge, characteristically eager to answer for everybody. "What an awful fool I must have looked myself. I'll do the next _arete_ on my hind legs like the rest of you." And he was as good as his word.

Two more of these narrow rock-ridges, overhanging a dizzy height, then a particularly awkward "corner" where a very slight excrescence of the rock const.i.tuted the only foothold, and where Wentworth and Philip's combined caution availed to render the danger for Alma practically _nil_, and they began the steep but easy climb of the gra.s.sy cone itself. A few minutes later they stood on the summit.

"Well, Miss Wyatt, I must in all due sincerity congratulate you," said Wentworth, as they sat down to rest after their exertions. "No one could have got along better than you have done. And you have never climbed a mountain before?"

"Never. Why, I've never even seen a mountain before I came to this country a couple of weeks ago," answered Alma, with a gratified smile.

"Wonderful I wonderful! Isn't it, Fordham?"

"Very," replied that worthy, drily.

"No chance of any one holding too good an opinion of herself when Mr Fordham is by," said Alma, with mischievous emphasis on the "her."

"Which is to say that everything--everybody, rather--is of some use,"

was the ready rejoinder.

"I don't see the point of that at all," cried Phil, dimly conscious that his deity was being made the b.u.t.t of his crusty friend's satire. "No, I don't. Come now, Fordham."

"I suppose not. There is another point you don't see either, which is that when a man has taken the trouble to s.h.i.+n up the Cape au Moine on a particularly hot and surpa.s.singly clear day, he prefers the enjoyment of the magnificent view which a bountiful Providence has spread around him to the labour of driving this or that 'point' into the somewhat opaque brain-box of Philip Orlebar, Esq."

"You had better take that as final, Mr Orlebar, ere worse befall you,"

laughed! Alma, interrupting the derisive hoot wherewith her adorer had greeted the above contemptuous speech. "And Mr Fordham's principle is a sound one in the main, for I never could have imagined the world could show anything so glorious, so perfectly heavenly as this view. Let us make the most of it."

Her enthusiasm was not feigned, and for it there was every justification. The atmosphere balmy and clear, the lofty elevation at which they found themselves--these alone were enough to engender an unbounded sense of exhilaration. But what a panorama! Range upon range of n.o.ble mountains, the dazzling snow-summits of the giants of the Oberland reaching in a stately line across the whole eastern background of the picture, from the cloud-like Wetterhorn to the ma.s.sive rock rampart of the Diablerets. Mountains, mountains everywhere--one vast rolling sea of tossing peaks, rock-ridges, and smooth, hump-like backs; of bold and sweeping slopes, here black with pine forest, there vividly green in the full blaze of unclouded sunlight; and, cleaving the heart of the billowy expanse, such a maze of sequestered and peaceful valleys resonant with the far-away music of cow-bells, at eventide sweet with the melodious _jodel_ of the _Ranz des Vaches_. In the distance the turbid Sarine winding its way by more than one cl.u.s.ter of red roofs grouping around a modest steeple on its banks. This on the one hand.

On the other, the rolling, wooded champaign and rich pasture-lands of the plain of Switzerland stretching away to the lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne, and historic Morat; and below, like a huge turquoise, the blue Lake Leman in its mountain-girt setting, between the far-away line of the purple Jura and the great ma.s.ses of the Savoy Alps rearing up opposite. What a panorama, beneath a sky of deep and unclouded blue, lighted by the golden radiance of a summer sun! It was indeed something to make the most of--to store up within the treasure-house of the memory.

Seated upon the rank gra.s.s which carpeted the windswept summit of the narrow pinnacle, Alma was making Wentworth tell her the names of the sea of peaks, far and near, which lay around them. This he was well qualified to do, knowing them as he did by heart, and for nearly an hour the object lesson went on. Fordham lay on the gra.s.s, smoking a pipe, in an att.i.tude of the most perfect repose, and the irrepressible Gedge was bearing his part in a bawled colloquy between himself and those they had left to await their return. Neither heard what the other said, but this was a secondary consideration. The great thing was to be saying something--anyhow as far as the volatile Gedge was concerned.

"It isn't the snow mountains that are responsible for the greatest number of smashes," said Wentworth, having pointed out two or three peaks which, like the one they were on, were responsible for having killed somebody. "The gra.s.s peaks like this are far the worst. It's this way. A fellow makes up his mind to do a regular climb--say the Matterhorn or the Jungfrau. All right. He makes up his mind that he's going to do a big thing, and from start to finish he's keenly on the look out. Besides, he has guides, who won't allow him to take any risk.

Now, on a thing like this, that you can just hop up and down again between the two _table d'hotes_, why he thinks he is going to do it on one leg, like friend Gedge there."

"Well, but--Wentworth--you don't call this a small thing?" struck in he named. "The confounded--what d'you call 'em?--_aretes_ require a pretty strong head."

"Yes, that's so. This is, perhaps, a little more difficult than some of the other climbs that break fellows' necks. Take the old Jaman, for instance. You could almost ride a mule up and down it. Anyhow, the path, with ordinary care, is as safe as a church. But some day the know-everything Briton spots a rather fine gentian growing just off the path. Quite easy, of course. But he soon finds all the difference in the world between the path and the mountain-side. The gra.s.s is as slippery as ice, especially if it is a little wet. His feet slide from under him and away he goes. A toboggan's nothing to it. He shoots down the gra.s.s slope like a streak of lightning, then over the inevitable cliff--and--a sack of bones is brought back to the hotel, and a paragraph goes the round of the English papers, headed 'Another Alpine Accident.' Thus a mountain gets the name of being a dangerous one, whereas really it is a mere idiot-trap, sensible people being perfectly safe on it--in ordinarily decent weather, that is."

"Horrible!" said Alma, with a little s.h.i.+ver. "And at this height it all seems to come home to one so."

"I say, Wentworth," said Phil, "you'd better keep those bogey disquisitions of yours until we get down. You will spoil Miss Wyatt's nerve for the _aretes_ going back."

"Not at all," said Alma. "I am very much interested. Tell me, Mr Wentworth, don't people often come to grief by climbing down places that look easier than they are?"

"Of course they do. You notice, from below, a bit of rock that looks as if you could sit on it and then have your feet on the ground, but when you get to it it's a cliff fifty or sixty feet high. But I've taken the trouble to go into the cases, and in nine instances out of ten it is the little gra.s.s fiend that does for its victim, not the eternal snow-capped giant."

"Ever come up here in the snow, Wentworth?" said Gedge.

"Yes. It's dangerous, though--very dangerous indeed. I don't care about doing it again--in winter, I mean, not when there's a mere temporary powdering of it. Of course, you understand, the whole aspect of the mountain is changed, every feature as unfamiliar as if it was a new thing. And snow is apt to slide away in great ma.s.ses, taking you with it. It's bad in wind, too. I've crossed those _aretes_ when I've had to lie flat and grab the rock rather harder than we saw friend Scott doing just now. You have no idea of the force of the wind on a place like that."

Fordham and Gedge now started to go down. Alma, however, begged for a little longer time. She might never see such a view again in her lifetime, she urged, and they had still the best part of the day before them. So Wentworth had yielded--that is to say, he had remained behind too, ignoring Philip Orlebar's airy hint that _he_ needn't bother to wait if he would rather go, for that he--Phil--would undertake to bring Miss Wyatt down safely. But Wentworth, who was a good-natured fellow, and whose inclinations in nowise moved him to cut out Master Phil even temporarily, was impervious to the latter's wishes now. He felt himself in a measure responsible, and Philip was comparatively inexperienced at mountain work.

So they sat and talked on, till suddenly Alma exclaimed, with a s.h.i.+ver--

"Why, the sun is going in. And look! we are almost in a cloud."

Wentworth, hitherto absorbed in a favourite topic, doubly attractive as shared by a new and interested listener, looked quickly round.

"Yes," he said, rising, "we had better go down."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

PERIL.

It had stolen upon them like an enemy unawares.

A moment ago they were in a full blaze of noonday radiance, revelling in its golden, undimmed splendour; now this had, as by the wave of a magic wand, given place to a semi-gloom, chill and depressing in its misty suddenness. A moment ago a panorama as of half a continent lay spread around them, now an object the size of a human being was invisible at twelve yards. Creeping up, swift, stealthy, and ghost-like, the cloud curtain was wreathing its dank and shadowy folds round the pinnacle-like cone of the Cape au Moine, and already imparting a rimy slipperiness to the rocks and gra.s.s.

"We had better go down," Wentworth had said, unconcernedly. Heartily now he wished they had done so half an hour earlier, for he, in common with the rest of them, was sensible of a sudden rising of the wind, which, taken with the fact that, so far from dispelling the cloud, it only seemed to be rolling it up thicker, pointed to the possibility of a gusty squall, the extent and suddenness of whose force it was impossible to predict.

The very features of the mountain seemed to have changed. As they got off the gra.s.sy cone on to the first _arete_, the summit, dimly visible as they looked back, seemed to tower up at least four times its actual height, and the vertical line of the great precipice which forms its eastern face stood forth black and forbidding against the opaque background of vapour. A pair of crows flapped forth from some rocky recess and, uttering a raucous croak, soared away into the misty s.p.a.ce.

The straight, narrow edge of their dizzy path disappeared in the cloud not a dozen yards in front.

No one knew better than Wentworth the utterly disconcerting effect of this sort of phenomenon upon even the most skilled mountaineer. Every well-known feature or landmark a.s.sumes a puzzling unfamiliarity--in fact, a complete metamorphosis of the whole scene appears to have taken place. So, with a dubious glance to windward, he remarked--

"It might be our best plan not to attempt the _aretes_ at present. We can get back on to the cone and wait until this blows over, in perfect safety. What do you think, Miss Wyatt?"

"Oh, let's try it, if it can be done," she exclaimed, eagerly. "My uncle will be so dreadfully frightened if we wait here. Only think of it. He will certainly imagine we have come to grief. No, let's go on; I am not in the least afraid."

Wentworth made no further objection, and they resumed their now perilous way. For the wind had gained in strength and volume with alarming rapidity, and, balanced there on that knife-like ridge, those three adventurous ones were exposed to its full force and fury. More than once they were obliged to take refuge on their hands and knees, and indeed were finally reduced to crawling ignominiously thereon. The shrill whistle of the blast tore past their ears, singing through the weather-beaten herbage which straggled upon the side of the _arete_.

The mist swirled over the crest of the ridge in rimy puffs, and below, whenever they s.n.a.t.c.hed half a glance from their precarious progress, the climbers could note a seething, whirling chaos of vapour filling up the great hollow whose bottom lay at a dizzy depth beneath.

"Not much further to go, is there?" said Philip, anxiously, as they stood resting beneath the rocks at the end of the second _arete_ from the summit. It had devolved upon Wentworth as guide to help Alma down the steeper and more dangerous places, even to the placing of her feet; but this Philip had quite ceased to secretly resent. He himself was as bewildered as a child in this unaccustomed cloud-land.

"Not so very much," answered Wentworth, ambiguously and in fact somewhat absently, for often as he had been there before, the cloud had disconcerted him more than he chose to admit, and he was thinking whether it would not really be rank lunacy to resume their attempt. But a slight s.h.i.+ver of cold on Alma's part decided him.

"Had enough rest, Miss Wyatt?" he said. "Come along, then. We must not lose any time."

He stepped forth from their resting-place. The shrieking fury of the wind had become almost a gale. This _arete_ was the worst of all, for whereas the path on the others ran here and there along the face of the slope, thus partially s.h.i.+elding them from the full force of the blast, here they would have to crawl along the very crest itself.

"It seems to be blowing harder than ever!" said Wentworth, imprudently standing upright upon the sharp ridge.

A perfect roar drowned his words. As though struck by some unseen power he staggered, made a frantic attempt to regain a rec.u.mbent posture, then clutching wildly at the ground he disappeared into s.p.a.ce; while the horrified spectators who had not yet left their shelter, blown flat against the rock by the incredible force of the sudden gust, realised that but for this providential rampart they too would have met with the same fate.