Chapter Twenty One
The Falling Stone
“Peter,” said Fordham, interrupting a story over which the guides were guffawing among themselves, and which related to a certain rash tourist who had undertaken to cross the Gorner glacier alone, giving Herr Baedeker as his authority for dispensing with the services of their fraternity, and how the adventurous one being eventually missed was duly sought for, which search resulted in the discovery of him at the bottom of a small crevasse in company with a sprained ankle and a Baedeker, and how some of them in resentment of the fancied slur upon their craft had grimly suggested that, whereas Baedeker had got him into his present quandary, it was only fair that Baedeker should get him out. “Peter, how long shall we take to get down to Zermatt?”
The man thus addressed stared gravely at the sky, then down at the valley, then at the surrounding heights, then at his colleague. The latter went through precisely the same formula. Then he replied —
“If de gentleman” – with a look at Philip – “go down so well as he did come up, then we shall get there in about seven or eight hours.”
“Right you are, Peter. You may put it at that,” cried Phil, with alacrity. “I’ll go down like a chamois, my buck. We’ll be in easy time for table d’hôte.” But the other did not enter into this spirit of exuberance. There was a touch of grimness in his reply, given with characteristic deliberation.
“You had better be late for de table d’hôte than not get to de table d’hôte ever again,” he said.
“That’s a damper, anyway,” rejoined Phil.
“It’s a well earned one,” said Fordham. “He wants you to realise that you can no more afford to be careless going down than you could coming up. And you can’t. You’re a heavyish chap, Phil, and there are places where if you lose your footing we are extremely likely to be unable to hold you up. And although your return to the valley we have just left may be welcome enough, I doubt if it will be adequately so if effected in fragmentary form. So don’t imagine you can afford to skip down the Rothhorn on one leg, that’s all.”
Peter Anderledy, the head guide, was a swarthy, thick-set fellow, black-bearded, and Italian looking – of apparently about forty, but in reality ten years younger. The other, Conrad Spinner, was about the same age but of a different build, being tall and straight, and of the Northern type. His bronzed face was almost as dark as that of his colleague, but his hair and moustache were blonde. The countenances of both men wore the sedate almost melancholy expression common to those of their calling, but the glance of their eyes was straight and quick. Both were addicted to the unlimited consumption of tobacco – also in common with those of their craft – a consideration by the way which is difficult to reconcile with the popular notion that the soothing weed is detrimental, not to say disastrous to the nerves, for if there is one class of men which combines the most consummate coolness and courage with an unlimited supply of sheer physical endurance and quickness of resource, assuredly that class is represented by the qualified Alpine guide.
Few Alpine peaks are perpendicular, even on their most precipitous side. The Rothhorn, however, is one of these, for its eastern face, if anything, slightly overhangs, falling in a magnificent drop of ironstone precipice, a depth of about fifteen hundred feet to the glacier beneath. Its summit is in reality in two peaks, one slightly lower than the other. The way lies not over but round the lower of these, effecting what is termed in mountaineering parlance a “corner.” There is excellent hold both for hand and foot, but whereas the climber at the moment of rounding this projection can neither see nor be seen by the rest of his party, and whereas, further, his body is slightly inclined outward over the dizzy height before mentioned, it follows that the novice, unless endowed with perfect steadiness of head and nerve, is apt to find the position a somewhat trying one.
Now this is just what befell Philip Orlebar. At the worst point of the projection, while hanging on, thus outwardly inclined, curiosity moved him to turn his face over his shoulder and look down. The effect of the stupendous height was disastrous. His hands, gripping the rock overhead, began to tremble. A coldness ran through his legs. He could not move. He felt that if he did so he must let go. Nor could he withdraw his gaze from that awful abyss.
“What on earth are you doing, Phil?” sung out Fordham, from behind, noticing that the rope had ceased moving.
“I’m looking down,” came the reply.
“You must not look down. You must come on,” called out the head guide, who was leading.
The voices broke the spell. With an effort he pulled himself together, and in a minute stood beside Peter. The others promptly followed.
“By Jove! That’s a grisly sort of place – eh, Peter?” he said. “I suppose it’s the worst of all?”
“No; it is not de vorst – but it looks de vorst,” was the slow reply. “But – you are all right. You have only to be careful – very careful.”
A slight change had been made in their position on the rope for the downward climb. Peter Anderledy, the head guide, took the lead as before. Philip as the novice, came next – the theory being that as he was more likely to make a false step than Fordham, there should be two above him to increase the chances of his safety – and indeed that of the whole party – for there are two or three places during the first hour’s descent of the Rothhorn on the Zermatt side where it is difficult to believe the rope would save anybody, so steep is the face of the rock, so slight the hold.
And now the work began in earnest. Almost immediately they got into a narrow gully – a mere indenture in the surface of the rock, going straight down for a considerable distance, and just sufficiently out of the perpendicular to enable them to scramble down it slowly and with infinite trouble – now sprawling face to the surface, now in ungainly, half-squatting attitude, knees almost on a level with the chin. There was hardly any hold as such; the climber preserving his position almost entirely by pressure against the snow and ice-encrusted sides of the shoot, much as an old-fashioned chimney sweeper in the prosecution of his trade. It was an ugly place, and in the slippery precariousness of the position with the whole height of the mountain to fall, was an extremely trying one.
“I say, Peter,” gasped Philip, as at a peremptory call from above to halt he was striving to make good his stability. “This is a devil of a bit, you know. I suppose if a fellow were to fall he wouldn’t stop till he got right down on the Durand glacier, eh?”
“Do not talk,” came the severe reply. “Take care of what you are doing. And mind de shtones.”
None too soon was the warning. Hardly were the words uttered than a large flat stone, as big as a full-sized photograph album – upon which Philip had reckoned as a secure support – gave way beneath his feet with a startling suddenness that made his blood run cold, and went crashing and bounding straight for Peter. The latter, however, had seen the catastrophe almost before it had occurred. With incredible celerity he rolled aside, and, clinging to the face of the rock like a fly on the wall, felt the air of the impromptu projectile as it shot by within a foot of him and right through what a fraction of a second before had been occupied by his body. Away it went, splitting to fragments, as in a series of leaps and bounds it disappeared from sight.
“I say, though, I’m awfully sorry,” said Philip, while Peter muttered some very bad language —secreta– and Fordham sung out a warning to him to be more careful and not to trust any stone until he had first well tested it.
At length the gully ended and was succeeded by some very pretty rock climbing. The side of the mountain here bore the aspect of being plated with huge slabs, and it was mainly upon the projections formed by what should have been the “joints” of these, together with cracks running across their surface, that the climbers were able to make their way.
“A steeple-jack’s work is a fool to this,” commented Phil, gazing at the two high above him as they descended cautiously and with cool deliberation from point to point.
With ordinary care there was no risk here. Each man securing his foothold before the others moved they descended slowly but surely. It was a delightful climb, and, indeed, no form of mountaineering is more interesting than rockwork of the kind. They arrived without accident at the point where the way lies through a gap in the high rock ridge, and sat down for a short rest as well as to refresh the inner man.
Experienced climbers prescribe the latter process for every two hours. Certain it is that such recuperation is exceedingly welcome no less often, thanks to the keen air of those high latitudes. But lack of time and the risk of catching a chill precludes anything but the briefest halt; wherefore, if the exertion immediate upon feeding resulteth not in excruciating indigestion, the subject may congratulate himself on an extra well-ordered internal economy. This poor Philip was destined to learn at the hands of that hardest of all preceptresses, experience. His normally buoyant spirits had deserted him, and as they resumed their way down the rugged rock-face of the mountain he felt altogether bad.
“This Alpineering is a fraud, Fordham,” he pronounced. “I know I’ve got a splitting headache, and feel as if there was a ball of string in my diaphragm. I guess the little grass climbs are good enough for me.”
“Look where you are going! Never mind de talking till we get down,” put in Peter Anderledy.
The peremptoriness of the rebuke brought Phil’s head back from over his shoulder with the celerity of a recruit at the word “eyes right!” Then he growled. But this expression of his dissatisfaction made upon the stolid guide not the faintest impression.
“Herr Gott!” imprecated the latter presently, with set teeth and a savage glance upward as he stopped to listen. “De shtones are falling.”
High above among the cliffs, but slightly in front of their line of march, a hollow rattle became audible. There was something weird and uncanny about the sound. No mortal hand, no mortal agency had loosened those rocks and sent them hurtling down into the depths below. It was almost as if the demons of the air were abroad.
The party was descending a long couloir or gully, which traversed obliquely the iron face of the mountain. The crannies of the rocks were filled with snow and the footing was good. Here and there a bit of sloping ice necessitated the cutting of a step or two, but, on the whole, the way was easy. Yet the guides seem to cast anxious glances upward, and ever and anon that ghostly echoing rattle was heard.
“Sunshine is a delightful thing,” quoth Fordham. “But like everything else to which that term applies it is bound to have its obverse side. I could wish just now it had been cloudier and colder.”
“Why the deuce should you wish that?” said Philip.
“Because then there wouldn’t be so many stones flying. You see, they’re frozen to the rock by a thin cementing of ice. As soon as the sun has any power that ice melts and they slide off. All these rock mountains are the very devil for falling stones. On the Matterhorn you hear them rattling all day long – ”
A vehement imprecation from both guides simultaneously, interrupted them. There was a rushing sound in the air very like the “whigge” of a shell, and a shadow seemed to swoop over their heads. Looking upward they beheld a solid mass of rock of at least two tons’ weight, sailing through the air. It had shot outward from the last projecting portion of the cliff upon which it had struck, and now describing a lofty arc it whizzed directly over their position, and striking the rocks some hundred feet lower split into fragments, which went crashing and roaring down to the glacier beneath.
Fordham, contemplating this occurrence, shook his head slightly and said nothing. Philip opened his eyes wide and ejaculated, “By Jove!” The guides swore with renewed energy. Each action was characteristic.
For any such edifying notions as that the average man feels subdued and reverential in the presence of impending danger may safely be relegated to the Sunday school. In nine cases out of ten he relieves his feelings pretty much as these Alpine guides did theirs – or feels inclined to – presumably as the outcome of an unwonted excitement not unmixed perhaps with a sort of irritation against the powers that be, which have, in a manner of speaking, “cornered” him.
“We must get on so quick as we can. De shtones are going to fall to-day like a devil,” remarked Peter. This comparison as it stood was a correct one and graphic withal. But in point of fact no thought of the fall of Lucifer entered the honest guide’s head. He was merely reproducing a time-honoured and highly colloquial simile, the unconscious variation of which made Philip laugh.
For a quarter of an hour all went well. Suddenly that ominous rattle was heard again – right overhead. The three foremost were on a small but steep slope of hard ice, nor could they move out of the steps which had been cut by the foremost guide’s axe. It follows, therefore, that the attitudes struck by them were grotesque in the extreme as they stood glaring wildly upward at a rumbling shower of stones coming down straight at them, as though the power of the human eye might at a pinch avail to deflect the dreaded volley. On it came, whizzing and ricochetting by – the three men staring at it in the most ludicrous state of helplessness, Fordham ducking violently as a small chip rebounding from the ice grazed his ear like a slug. It was but a shower of small stones – none larger than a cricket ball. But a bullet is as potent for evil as a cannon shot, as Philip was destined to learn. He was seen to pick up his right leg with a howl of pain, and then to go rather white in the face.
“Are you hurt?” said the head guide, somewhat anxiously.
“Oh, not much, I suppose,” was the rather doleful reply. “I believe my ankle’s broken, that’s all.”
Peter, without a word, turned back to help him, but he declined any aid.
“The sooner we are out of this the better,” he said. “I can hop along somehow. Hand us your flask, Fordham. That’s better!”
And he was as good as his word. Though his foot was frightfully painful he found that he could still use it, and at length they left the rock-face of the mountain and gained the high ice arête which forms one of the spurs of the latter.
It was an awkward place wherein to be incapacitated. The way lay right along the very edge of the arête, where there was not room for two to walk abreast. But Phil was very game. The pain of his bruised ankle increased with every step, but he was not going to hamper his companions by collapsing. He took another liberal pull at Fordham’s flask, and started again manfully, trying to persuade himself that he was in reality more frightened than hurt.
But apart from this casualty the view as seen from the apex of the dizzy arête was a thing to make the very pulses bound with delight in the sheer exhilaration of living. Behind rose the stupendous cliffs of the eastern face of the Rothhorn, soaring up to its twin-peaked summit against the deep and cloudless blue. Immediately beneath, webbed and criss-crossed by innumerable cracks, lay an amphitheatre of vast glaciers flowing down from a crescent of grim and frowning cliffs culminating in the Ober-Gabelhorn, a tower of precipitous rock. Right opposite, the huge Matterhorn, a dark monolith, frowning, defiant – then a white sublimity of dazzling snow mountains, the broad hump of the Breithorn, and the two smaller ones known as Castor and Pollux – the perilous Lyskamm and the sheeny mass of the beautiful Monte Rosa. Glaciers, innumerable and vast, mighty rivers of rolling white waves, whatever way the eye should turn.
There was a sudden boom as of a heavy thunderpeal – a dull, roaring rush as of a mighty torrent. A grand avalanche was pouring down the dark perpendicular precipices which shut in the head of the Trift glacier, a cataract of powdery whiteness, which, when the glass was brought to bear, revealed hundreds of tons of frozen snow and huge ice blocks, falling into a frightful chasm at the foot of the cliff, whence arose a column of powdery spray for many minutes afterward. As this vast volume flowed down the metallic face of the dark rock, each peak and precipice around re-echoed the thunderous boom in a hundred differing reverberations.
Scarcely had this ceased than there came a sound of yodelling – cheery, melodious, distant. Far down in the centre of the white and crevassed plain, four specks, equidistant, were moving in a downward course.
“It is a caravan who has come over de Trift-joch,” pronounced Conrad Spinner. And then he and his colleagues lifting up their voices, answered the yodel, while Philip, being unskilled in that art but moved by a British and youthful desire to make a noise of some sort, lifted up his in an ear-splitting and quite unmelodious yell.
The ice arête came to an end at last and was succeeded by a long descent over loose rocks, which, piled and packed together by the hand of Nature, made a very tedious and difficult descent at the best of times. To poor Philip with his bruised ankle it became excruciating. At length he could endure it no longer and sank to the ground with an agonised groan.
“Off with your boot, and let’s appraise the damage,” said Fordham. “Yes, it’s a bad whack,” he went on, as the extent of the injury became manifest – for the whole ankle was frightfully swollen. It had been struck on the inside, and the least touch made the sufferer wince. Both guides shook their heads gloomily as they marked the angry and inflamed aspect of the contusion, and Peter Anderledy fired off a few invocations of his Maker in terms far more forcible than reverential. Even for this there might have been found some extenuation. Besides a rough and steep descent over the loose rocks aforesaid, there yet remained a bit of cliff to be climbed down, the end of a glacier to cross, then at least half an hour down a high moraine, whose edge, sharp and knife-like, entailed single file progress, before they reached a point from which a mule or a litter might be used, and even that point was some hours distant from the village.
This, however, was accomplished at last – the descent of the cliff being avoided by a long détour. With the help of Conrad’s stalwart shoulder poor Phil managed to get along with a minimum of pain. But it took them rather more than twice the ordinary time to accomplish the traject, nor did they arrive at the point whence artificial transport could be used until long after the hour when they had reckoned upon sitting safe and snug at table d’hôte in the Hôtel Mont Cervin at Zermatt.
“I say, Conrad, this is a right royal sell,” said Philip, as they sat round a handful of fire which the guide had built – for Peter and Fordham had hurried on to procure a mule or a chaise-à-porteur, and could not return for some hours. “Sell isn’t the word for it. We reckoned on doing the Matterhorn the day after to-morrow. I suppose there’s no chance of it now.”
“If you can walk as far as de Riffel in one week you can tink you are very lucky,” answered the guide.
Poor Philip groaned.
“It’s deuced rough,” he said. “I didn’t come over to Zermatt to lie up a week in a confounded hotel.”
“It would be worse to lie up for ever in de churchyard,” answered Conrad oracularly, as he lit his pipe.
“I suppose it would – but, I say, Conrad, how is it you fellows all talk such good English? Where the dickens do you learn it?”
“We learn it in de vinter. We make a class.”
“But who teaches you? Do you get hold of an Englishman?”
“No. It is a Swiss – a Swiss who has been five years in America. But,” added the guide, naïvely, “I don’t tink his pronunciation is very good.”
Meanwhile, Fordham and Peter were making their way down the wild and desolate Trift-thal in the moonlight.
“I never did see de Rothhorn so bad for de shtones as to-day,” grumbled the latter. “Dey come down, oh, like a devil.”
“It’s unfortunate, but one consolation is that it was nobody’s fault. It was sheer ill-luck, Peter, and you or Conrad might equally well have been hit.”
“No, it is nobody’s fault,” assented Peter. “But, if anyting goes wrong with de gentleman dere are always peoples what say it is de guide’s fault. But dat is just de very ting no guide can help – de falling shtones. We get over de place as quick as we can, but we can’t run. Ach!” he concluded, with a disgusted shake of the head.
There was reason in what he said. An Alpine guide under the circumstances is in much the same position as the captain of a ship. There are casualties which can be averted neither by the skill of the one nor the seamanship of the other, nor the courage of both. Yet when such occur public opinion is equally hard on both.
It was midnight before the sufferer was safely housed. The local practitioner looked grave, very grave, when he examined the injury. He peremptorily forbade the patient to set foot to the ground until he gave him leave, and that under pain of almost certainly losing his foot altogether.
“Great events from little causes spring.” The little cause in this instance was that little stone. There was a grim literalness in Peter Anderledy’s unconscious variation of a well-worn simile when he predicted that the stones were going to fall “like a devil” – for the falling of that little stone was destined to alter the course of Philip Orlebar’s whole life. Its effect might well have been the result of satanic intervention.