The Crystal Hunters: A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps

by George Manville Fenn

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

  THE BLACK RAVINE.

  Perfectly simple to arrange, but very difficult to practise. Forinstance, they had to toil on quite a mile before the narrow crack,which formed the bed of a streamlet, offered itself as a way out of theglacier valley.

  "I'm afraid this will be an awkward climb, Saxe," said Dale. "What doyou say? Will you face the hard work?"

  "Oh yes!" he cried. "It's better than going the same way back."

  "Up you go, then."

  Saxe went on, now on one side of the tiny stream, now on the other, thesides rising right and left almost perpendicularly at times. But therewas plenty of good foot and hand-hold, so that Saxe made his way onwardand upward at a fair rate for mountaineering, and in a very short timethey had taken a last look of the glacier; the narrow rift, turnedalmost at right angles, growing blacker and more forbidding in aspect atevery step.

  "I don't believe there is any way out here!" cried Saxe at last. "Itgets deeper and darker, as if it were a cut right into the mountain."

  He had paused to rest as he spoke, and the gurgling of the little streamdown a crack far below mingled with his words.

  "Well, let's go a little farther first," said Dale. "I am beginning tothink it is going to be a cul de sac."

  He looked up to right and left at the walls of black rock growing higherthe farther they went, and now quite made up his mind that there wouldbe no exit from the gorge; but all the same, it had a peculiarfascination for both, from its seeming to be a place where the foot ofman had never before trod, and the possibility of their making somediscovery deep in among the black rocks of the weird chasm.

  "Tired? Shall we turn back?" said Dale from time to time.

  "Oh no! let's go a little farther. This ought to be the sort of placeto find crystals, oughtn't it?"

  "I can't give you any information, my lad, about that; only that I haveseen no sign of any. Say when you want to turn back."

  "All right. Oh! look here!"

  The chasm had made another turn, and as Saxe spoke he climbed on alittle farther, so as to make room for his companion to join him amongthe fragments of broken rock upon which he stood. And there, rightbefore them, the walls seemed to run together in the side of a blackmass of rock, which formed the base of a snowy peak, one which theyrecognised as having often seen, and now looking the more brilliant incontrast with the black rock from which it rose.

  "We could get there in another quarter of an hour," said Saxe.

  "Yes; but what good shall we do when we get there?" replied Dale. "Yousee that the rocks to right and left are not to be scaled, or that thisplace ends in a mere gash or split."

  "But you never know till you get close up," said Saxe. "The rocks foldover one another; so that we may after all find a way out and over themountain."

  "Well, if you are not too tired we'll try. This stream must come fromsomewhere. Hear it?"

  "Yes, I can hear," said Saxe, as he listened to the strange musicalgurgle of running waters somewhere far down below the blocks which hadfallen from the sides of the chasm.

  He started on climbing from stone to stone--some planted solidly, othersso nearly poised that they rocked beneath his feet.

  "One good thing," he cried breathlessly: "you can't fall any lower. Hownarrow the place is!"

  It grew narrower still before they reached the spot where the placeended in the cleft in the face of the black rock; but, just as the boyhad said, there was a fold of the chasm, quite a knife-edge of stoneround, and beyond which the stream came gurgling down, and apparentlygoing directly upward to the right.

  "There!" cried Saxe. "What did I tell you? This is the way up. ShallI go on?"

  "Yes, a little way; but I did not reckon on these difficulties. We willonly explore a little to-day. To-morrow we can come straight hereearlier, and take our time."

  The place was narrower than ever now, and the rocks roseperpendicularly, so high that the place was almost in twilight. It wasnearly a repetition of the chasm up which they had come, save that oneside was the mountain itself, the other a portion split off.

  The mountain side proving the easier, as the stones in the bottom grewmore massive and difficult to climb, the boy took to the slope, and madesuch rapid progress that Dale was left behind; and he was about to shoutto Saxe not to hurry, when he saw that the boy was waiting some eightyor ninety yards in advance, and high up above the bottom of the gorgealong which Dale had proceeded in a slower and surer way.

  Dale went on till he was right below the boy, and then stopped to wipehis forehead.

  "Let's get back, Saxe," he said: "there may be traces of this narrowcrack going right round the mountain. Ready?"

  There was no answer.

  "Saxe!"

  "Yes," rather hoarsely.

  "Come down now, and let's go back."

  There was again no answer.

  "Why don't you come down?" said Dale.

  "I--I'll come down directly."

  "Curious place--very curious place!" said Dale, looking about him at thesolid walls of rock. "I shouldn't wonder if we came upon crevicessimilar to those which we found lower down in the sides of the glacier:perhaps we may hit upon a cavern that we can explore. I must bringMelchior up here: he has a nose like a dog for holes of that kind."

  He stood peering here and there with his back to Saxe, and did not turnfor a few minutes. When at last he did, he saw that the boy was inprecisely the same position.

  "Why, Saxe, my lad," he said, "what are you doing? Why don't you comedown?"

  The lad turned his head very slowly till he could look down, and fixedhis eyes upon his companion in a peculiar, wild way.

  "What's the matter?--Giddy?"

  "No."

  "Come down, then."

  "I--can't," said the boy slowly.

  "Then climb on a little farther, and come down there."

  "No: I can't move."

  "Nonsense. This isn't a loadstone mountain, and you're not iron. Comedown."

  "I--I did try," said Saxe; "but I had to make a jump to get here, and Ican't jump back: there's nothing to take hold of."

  Dale scanned the position anxiously, seeing now for the first time thatthe rough angles and ridge-like pieces of rock along which the boy hadmade his way ceased about five feet from where he stood, and that hemust have jumped on to a narrow piece of stone not a foot long andsomewhere about a third of that width; and though, in the vast chasm inwhich they both were, the height above him, where Saxe wasspread-eagled, as it were, against the perpendicular rock, lookedperfectly insignificant, he was close upon a hundred feet up, and a fallwould have been very serious, if not fatal.

  "You foolish fellow!" Dale said cheerfully, so as not to alarm him at atime when he seemed to have quite lost his nerve: "pretty mess to getyourself in! Fortunately I have the rope."

  As Dale spoke he looked about wildly for some means of utilising thatrope; but he could see none.

  "Why did you go up there instead of keeping down here?"

  "I thought I saw an opening here," said Saxe; "and there is one bigenough to creep in. I am holding by the side of it now, or I should godown."

  "Then go on holding by the side," said Dale cheerily, though his facewas working; and then, to take the boy's attention from his perilousposition, "Not a crystal cave, is it?"

  "Yes. I felt big crystals inside: I am holding on by one."

  "Bravo! Well done, boy; but you are making yourself a front door."

  "Don't--don't laugh at me, Mr Dale," said Saxe piteously. "It is veryhard work to hold on."

  "I'm not laughing at you, Saxe, my boy: only saying a word to cheer youup. You haven't got a crevasse under you, and if the worst came Ishould have to catch you. Now, let's see: here's a ledge away to yourright; but it's too far for you to leap, and there is nothing to catchhold of. If I got the rope up to you, you could fasten it somewhere andslide down."

  "Fasten it? To what?"

  "
Ay?--to what?" said Dale to himself. Then aloud: "You haven't a verygood hold there, have you?"

  "No--dreadful," came faintly.

  "I say, boy; don't take that tone. Mountaineers are people full ofresources. You say you have an opening behind you?"

  "Yes."

  "Then can you hold on with one hand?"

  "I--I think so."

  "Think! Say yes!" shouted Dale angrily. "Now, hold on with one hand."

  "Yes."

  "Where's your ice-axe?"

  "I--I had forgotten that."

  "I can see that, sir. Now put your hand behind you and pull itcarefully out of your belt. Steady! there is no hurry. Don't drop it."

  Saxe passed his hand behind him, and gradually hitched the axe out fromwhere he had been carrying it like a sword while he climbed to the hole.

  "That's better. Mind! Now push it into the hole and turn it across.Can you?"

  Saxe obeyed his instructor, and Dale saw that the opening was about thelevel of the lad's waist, and evidently roomy--at least, amply largeinside for the axe to be crossed.

  "Now you've got something better to hold on by, and can hook your armover it to rest your hand."

  "Yes," cried Saxe, who was already doing this. "My hand was so horriblycramped, and it seemed as if you would never come."

  "Time always seems long when we are in trouble. Now then, do you feelsafer?"

  "Oh yes," cried Saxe; and there was a complete change in his tone. "Ican hold on now."

  "Of course you can. Pretty sort of an Alpine hand you are, to give upwithout thinking of your tools!"

  "Yes, I had forgotten my axe."

  "You'll forget your head next, sir. Now, tell me: how am I to get therope up to you?"

  "Can you throw it?"

  "No, I can't; nor you neither. Now, if you had been carrying it insteadof me, how easy it would be! Of course you have not got that ball ofstring with you?"

  "No," said Saxe sadly.

  "No one should travel without a knife and a bit of string in his pocket;and yet, if you had a bit of string, it would not be long enough. Now,what's to be done?"

  "I don't know," cried Saxe.

  "That shows you are only an apprentice at mountaineering yet. I doknow."

  "You can see a way to get me down, sir?" said Saxe joyously.

  "Yes: two ways. One is quick, short and dangerous."

  "More dangerous than being as I am?"

  "Yes, much; but for me, not you. The other will take longer, but it issafe."

  "Then try that way," said Saxe eagerly; for he had quite recovered hisnerve now, and would have been ready to jump to right or left had hebeen told.

  "No, my lad; you are tired, and in an awkward place. My second waymight fail too. It was to tear up my handkerchief and make it into astring to throw up to you, so that you could afterwards draw up therope. No: my string might break. But I am as foolish as you are, andas wanting in resource. There," he continued, after a few moments'pause, "what a boaster I am! I did not even think of cutting a pieceoff the rope, unravelling it, and making it into a string."

  "Yes, you could easily make that into a string," said Saxe anxiously.

  "No, that would be a pity," said Dale; "and a practised climber oughtnot to think of such a thing. I ought," he said, scanning the rockcarefully, "to be able to get up there above you, fasten the rope tosome block, and then let it down to you."

  "No, don't do that!" cried Saxe excitedly: "it is so easy to get up, andso hard to get down."

  "Not with a rope," said Dale cheerily. "Let's see. Suppose I join youthe way you came, and jump to you? Is there room for both?"

  "No, no!" cried Saxe excitedly.

  "Well, if I climb out to where you jumped, I can hand you the rope, youcan pass it round the ice-axe, and slip down with it double and thendraw it off. No: it is not long enough, and we should have to leave theaxe behind. I must climb above you, boy; so here goes."