Part 23 (1/2)

”I have sought for it.”

The answer was not given promptly, and Lewis found, with some surprise, that the subject appeared to be distasteful to the hunter. He therefore dropped it and walked on in silence.

Walking at the time was comparatively easy, for a sharp frost had hardened the surface of the snow, and the gem-like lights of heaven enabled them to traverse valleys of ice, clamber up snow-slopes and cross creva.s.ses without danger, except in one or two places, where the natural snow-bridges were frail and the chasms unusually wide.

At one of these creva.s.ses they were brought to a complete standstill.

It was too wide to be leaped, and no bridge was to be found. The movements of a glacier cause the continual s.h.i.+fting of its parts, so that, although rugged or smooth spots are always sure to be found at the same parts of the glacier each year, there is, nevertheless, annual variety in minute detail. Hence the most expert guides are sometimes puzzled as to routes.

The creva.s.se in question was a new one, and it was Antoine's first ascent of Mont Blanc for that year, so that he had to explore for a pa.s.sage just as if he had never been there before. The party turned to the left and marched along the edge of the chasm some distance, but no bridge could be found. The ice became more broken up, smaller creva.s.ses intersected the large one, and at last a place was reached where the chaos of dislocation rendered further advance impossible.

”Lost your bearin's, Antoine?” asked Captain Wopper.

”No; I have only got into difficulties,” replied the guide, with a quiet smile.

”Just so--breakers ahead. Well, I suppose you'll 'bout s.h.i.+p an' run along the coast till we find a channel.”

This was precisely what Antoine meant to do, and did, but it was not until more than an hour had been lost that a safe bridge was found.

When they had crossed, the configuration of the ice forced them to adopt a route which they would willingly have avoided. A steep incline of snow rose on their right, on the heights above which loose ice-grags were poised as if on the point of falling. Indeed, two or three tracks were pa.s.sed, down which, probably at no distant period, some of these avalanches had shot. It was nervous work pa.s.sing under them. Even Antoine looked up at them with a grave, inquiring glance, and hastened his pace as much as was consistent with comfort and dignity.

Soon after this the sun began to rise, and the upper portions of the snow were irradiated with pink splendour, but to our travellers he had not yet risen, owing to the intervening peaks of the Aiguille du Midi.

In the brightening light they emerged upon a plain named the Pet.i.t Plateau, which forms a reservoir for the avalanches of the Dome du Goute. Above them rose the mountain-crest in three grand ma.s.ses, divided from each other by rents, which exposed that peculiar stratified form of the glacier caused by the annual bedding of the snow. From the heights, innumerable avalanches had descended, strewing the spot where they stood with huge blocks of ice and ma.s.ses of rock.

Threading their way through these impediments was a matter not only of time, but of difficulty, for in some parts the s.p.a.ces between the boulders and blocks were hollow, and covered with thin crusts of snow, which gave way the instant a foot was set on them, plunging up to their waists the unfortunates who trod there, with a shock which usually called forth shouts of astonishment not unmingled with consternation.

”Here, then, we draw near to the grand summit,” said the Professor, pointing to the snow-cliffs on the right, ”whence originates the ice-fountain that supplies such mighty ice-rivers as the Glacier des Bossons and the Mer de Glace.”

”Oui, Monsieur,” replied Antoine, smiling, ”we _draw_ near, but we are not yet near.”

”We are nearer to the summit however, than we are to the plain,”

retorted the Professor.

”Truly, yes,” a.s.sented the guide.

”I should think no one could doubt that,” observed Slingsby, looking upwards.

”It looks quite near now,” said Lewis.

”Not so near, however, as you think, and as you shall find,” rejoined the guide, as they resumed their upward march.

This was indeed true. Nothing is more deceptive to an inexperienced eye than the apparent distance of a high mountain-top. When you imagine that the plain below is miles and miles away, and the peak above close at hand, you find, perhaps, on consulting your watch, that the plain cannot be very far distant, and that the greater part of your work still lies before you. It requires no small amount of resolution to bear up against the depression of spirit caused by frequent mistakes in this matter.

Owing to the increasing height and power of the sun, the snow beyond the Pet.i.t Plateau soon became soft, and the steepness of the ascent increasing, their advance became slower, and their work much more laborious. A pleasant break was, however, at hand, for, on reaching the Grand Plateau, they were cheered by the sun's rays beaming directly on them, and by the information that they had at length reached their breakfast-point.

It may not be a very romantic, but it is an interesting fact, that the joys connected with intellectual and material food are intimately blended. Man, without intellectual food, becomes a ”lower animal.”

What intellectual man is without material food, even for part of a day, let those testify who have had the misfortune to go on a pic-nic, and discover that an essential element of diet had been forgotten. It is not merely that food is necessary to maintain our strength; were that so, a five minutes' pause, or ten at the outside, would suffice, in Captain Wopper's phraseology, to take in cargo, or coal the human engine; but we ”_rejoice_ in food,” and we believe that none enjoy it so much as those whose intellectual appet.i.te is strong. If any doubters of these truths had witnessed the Professor and his friends at breakfast that morning on the Grand Plateau, they must have infallibly been convinced.

”What a gourmand he is!” whispered Lewis to the Captain, in reference to the man of science, ”and such a genial outflow of wit to correspond with his amazing indraught of wittles.”

The Captain's teeth were at the moment fixed with almost tigerish ferocity in a chicken drumstick, but the humour and the amazing novelty--to say nothing of the truth--of Lewis's remark made him remove the drumstick, and give vent to a roar of laughter that shook the very summit of Mont Blanc--at all events the Professor said it did, and he was a man who weighed his words and considered well his sentiments.