Part 40 (1/2)

Garratt Skinner had his pipe and some tobacco. He lit, shading the match with his coat; and then he looked at his watch.

”What time is it? Is it near morning?” asked Hine, in a voice which was very feeble.

”A little longer to wait,” said Garratt Skinner, cheerfully.

The hands marked a quarter to ten.

And afterward they grew very silent, except for the noise which they made in s.h.i.+vering. Their teeth chattered with the chill, they shook in fits which lasted for minutes, Walter Hine moaned feebly. All about them the world was bound in frost; the cold stars glittered overhead; the mountains took their toll of pain that night. Yet there was one among those three perched high on a narrow ledge of rock amongst the desolate heights, who did not regret. Just for a night like this Garratt Skinner had hoped. Walter Hine, weak of frame and with little stamina, was exposed to the rigors of a long Alpine night, thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with hardly any food, and no hope of rescue for yet another day and yet another night. There could be but one end to it. Not until to-morrow would any alarm at their disappearance be awakened either at Chamonix or at Courmayeur. It would need a second night before help reached them--so Garratt Skinner had planned it out.

There could be but one end to it. Walter Hine would die. There was a risk that he himself might suffer the same fate--he was not blind to it. He had taken the risk knowingly, and with a certain indifference. It was the best plan, since, if he escaped alive, suspicion could not fall on him.

Thus he argued, as he smoked his pipe with his back to the rock and waited for the morning.

At one o'clock Walter Hine began to ramble. He took Garratt Skinner and Pierre Delouvain for Captain Barstow and Archie Parminter, and complained that it was ridiculous to sit up playing poker on so cold a night; and while in his delirium he rambled and moaned, the morning began to break.

But with the morning came a wind from the north, whirling the snow like smoke about the mountain-tops, and bitingly cold. Garratt Skinner with great difficulty stood up, slowly and with pain stretched himself to his full height, slapped his thighs, stamped with his feet, and then looked for a long while at his victim, without remorse, and without satisfaction. He stooped and sought to lift him. But Hine was too stiff and numbed with the cold to be able to move. In a little while Pierre Delouvain, who had fallen asleep, woke up. The day was upon them now, cold and lowering.

”We must wait for the sun,” said Garratt Skinner. ”Until that has risen and thawed us it will not be safe to move.”

Pierre Delouvain looked about him, worked the stiffened muscles of his limbs and groaned.

”There will be little sun to-day,” he said. ”We shall all die here.”

Garratt Skinner sat down again and waited. The sun rose over the rocks of Mont Maudit, but weak, and yellow as a guinea. Garratt Skinner then tied his coat to his ice-ax, and standing out upon a rock waved it this way and that.

”No one will see it,” whimpered Pierre; and indeed Garratt Skinner would never have waved that signal had he not thought the same.

”Perhaps--one never knows,” he said. ”We must take all precautions, for the day looks bad.”

The sunlight, indeed, only stayed upon the mountain-side long enough to tantalize them with vain hopes of warmth. Gray clouds swept up low over the crest of Mont Blanc and blotted it out. The wind moaned wildly along the slopes. The day frowned upon them sullen and cold with a sky full of snow.

”We will wait a little longer,” said Garratt Skinner, ”then we must move.”

He looked at the sky. It seemed to him now very probable that he would lose the desperate game which he had been playing. He had staked his life upon it. Let the snow come and the mists, he would surely lose his stake.

Nevertheless he set himself to the task of rousing Walter Hine.

”Leave me alone,” moaned Walter Hine, and he struck feebly at his companions as they lifted him on to his feet.

”Stamp your feet, Wallie,” said Garratt Skinner. ”You will feel better in a few moments.”

They held him up, but he repeated his cry. ”Leave me alone!” and the moment they let him go he sank down again upon the ledge. He was overcome with drowsiness, the slightest movement tortured him.

Garratt Skinner looked up at the leaden sky.

”We must wait till help comes,” he said,

Delouvain shook his head.

”It will not come to-day. We shall all die here. It was wrong, monsieur, to try the Brenva ridge. Yes, we shall die here”; and he fell to blubbering like a child.

”Could you go down alone?” Garratt Skinner asked.

”There is the glacier to cross, monsieur.”

”I know. That is the risk. But it is cold and there is no sun. The snow-bridges may hold.”