Chapter VI: The Poem of One-Eyed Alexander (1)

There is a matter on my conscience which I can't excuse, but may as well confess. To deceive a maiden is a very sore thing--so sore that it had made us all hot against Constantine; but it may be doubted by a cool mind whether it is worse, nay, whether it is as bad, as to contrive the murder of a lawful wife. Poets have paid more attention to the first--maybe they know more about it; the law finds greater employment on the whole in respect to the latter. For me, I admit that it was not till I found myself stretched on a mattress in the kitchen, with the idea of getting a few hours' sleep, that it struck me that Constantine's wife deserved a share of my concern and care. Her grievance against him was at least as great as Euphrosyne's; her peril was far greater. For Euphrosyne was his object, Francesca (for that appeared from Vlacho's mode of address to be her name) was an obstacle that prevented his attaining that object.

For myself, I should have welcomed a cutthroat if it came as an alternative to Constantine's society; but probably his wife would not agree with me; and the conversation I had heard left me in little doubt that her life was not safe. They could not have an epidemic, Vlacho had prudently reminded his master; the island fever could not kill Constantine's wife and our party all in a day or two. Men suspect such obliging maladies, and the old lord had died of it, pat to the happy moment, already. But if the thing could be done, if it could be so managed that London, Paris, and the Riviera would find nothing strange in the disappearance of one Madame Stefanopoulos and the appearance of another, why, to a certainty, done the thing would be, unless I could warn or save the woman in the cottage. But I did not see how to do either. So (as I set out to confess) I dropped the subject. And when I went to sleep I was thinking, not how to save Francesca, but how to console Euphrosyne, a matter really of less urgency, as I should have seen had not the echo of that sad little cry still filled my ears.

The news that Hogvardt brought me, when I woke in the morning and was enjoying a slice of cow steak, by no means cleared my way. An actual attack did not seem imminent--I fancy these fierce islanders were not too fond of our revolvers--but the house was, if I may use the term, carefully picketed; and that both before and behind. Along the road that approached it in front, there stood sentries at intervals. They were stationed just out of range of our only effective long-distance weapon, but it was evident that egress on that side was barred; and the same was the case on the other. Hogvardt had seen men moving in the wood, and had heard their challenges to one another, repeated at regular intervals. We were shut off from the sea; we were shut off from the cottage. A blockade would reduce us as well as an attack. I had nothing to offer except the release of Euphrosyne. And to release Euphrosyne would in all likelihood not save us, while it would leave Constantine free to play out his ghastly game to its appointed end.

I finished my breakfast in some perplexity of spirit. Then I went and sat in the hall, expecting that Euphrosyne would appear from her room before long. I was alone, for the rest were engaged in various occupations, Hogvardt being particularly busy over a large handful of hunting-knives that he had gleaned from the walls; I did not understand what he wanted with them, unless he meant to arm himself in porcupine fashion.

Presently Euphrosyne came, but it was a transformed Euphrosyne. The kilt, knee breeches, and gaiters were gone; in their place was the white linen garment with flowing sleeves and the loose jacket over it, the national dress of the Greek woman; but Euphrosyne's was ornamented with a rare profusion of delicate embroidery, and of so fine a texture that it seemed rather like some delicate, soft, yielding silk. The change of attire seemed reflected in her altered manner. Defiance was gone and appeal glistened from her eyes as she stood before me. I sprang up, but she would not sit. She stood there, and, raising her glance to my face, asked simply: "Is it true?"

In a business-like way I told her the whole story, starting from the every-day scene at home in the restaurant, ending with the villainous conversation and the wild chase of the night before. When I related how Constantine had called Francesca his wife, Euphrosyne shivered; while I sketched lightly my encounter with him and Vlacho, she eyed me with a sort of grave curiosity; and at the end she said: "I'm glad you weren't killed." It was not an emotional speech, nor delivered with any _empressement_; but I took it for thanks, and made the best of it. Then at last she sat down and rested her head on her hand. Her absent air allowed me to study her closely, and I was struck by a new beauty which the bizarre boy's dress had concealed. Moreover, with the doffing of that, she seemed to have put off her extreme hostility; but perhaps the revelation I had made to her, which showed her the victim of an unscrupulous schemer, had more to do with her softened air. Yet she bore the story firmly, and a quivering lip was her extreme sign of grief or anger. And her first question was not of herself.

"Do you mean that they will kill this woman?" she asked.

"I'm afraid it's not unlikely that something will happen to her, unless, of course--" I paused, but her quick wit supplied the omission.

"Unless," she said, "he lets her live now, because I am out of his hands."

"Will you stay out of his hands?" I asked. "I mean, as long as I can keep you out of them."

She looked round with a troubled expression.

"How can I stay here?" she said in a low tone.

"You will be as safe here as you were in your mother's arms," I answered.

She acknowledged my promise with a movement of her head; but a moment later she cried:

"But I am not with you--I am with the people! The island is theirs and mine. It is not yours. I will have no part in giving it to you."

"I wasn't proposing to take pay for my hospitality," said I. "It'll be hardly handsome enough for that, I'm afraid. But mightn't we leave that question for the moment?" And I described briefly to her our present position.

"So that," I concluded, "while I maintain my claim to the island, I am at present more interested in keeping a whole skin on myself and my friends."

"If you will not give it up, I can do nothing," said she. "Though they knew Constantine to be all you say, yet they would follow him and not me if I yielded the island. Indeed, they would most likely follow him in any case. For the Neopalians like a man to follow, and they like that man to be a Stefanopoulos; so they would shut their eyes to much, in order that Constantine might marry me and become lord."

She stated all this in a matter-of-fact way, disclosing no great horror of her countrymen's moral standard. The straightforward barbarousness of it perhaps appealed to her a little; she loathed the man who would rule on those terms, but had some toleration for the people who set the true dynasty above all else. And she spoke of her proposed marriage as though it were a natural arrangement.

"I shall have to marry him, I expect, in spite of everything," she said.

I pushed my chair back violently. My English respectability was appalled.

"Marry him?" I cried. "Why, he murdered the old lord!"

"That has happened before among the Stefanopouloi," said Euphrosyne, with a calmness dangerously near to pride.

"And he proposes to murder his wife," I added.

"Perhaps he will get rid of her without that." She paused; then came the anger I had looked for before. "Ah, but how dared he swear that he had thought of no one but me and loved me passionately? He shall pay for that." Again it was injured pride that rang in her voice, as in her first cry. It did not sound like love, and for that I was glad. The courtship had probably been an affair of state rather than affection. I did not ask how Constantine was to be made to pay, whether before or after marriage. I was struggling between horror and amusement at my guest's point of view. But I take leave to have a will of my own, even sometimes in matters that are not exactly my concern, and I said now, with a composure that rivalled Euphrosyne's: "It is out of the question that you should marry him. I'm going to get him hanged, and, anyhow, it would be atrocious."

She smiled at that, but then she leant forward and asked:

"How long have you provisions for?"

"That's a good retort," I admitted. "A few days; that's all. And we can't get out to procure any more; and we can't go shooting, because the wood's infested with these ruff--I beg pardon--with your countrymen."

"Then it seems to me," said Euphrosyne, "that you and your friends are more likely to be hanged."

Well, on a dispassionate consideration, it did seem more likely; but she need not have said so. And she went on with an equally discouraging good sense:

"There will be a boat from Rhodes in about a month or six weeks. The officer will come then to take the tribute; perhaps the governor will come. But till then nobody will visit the island, unless it be a few fishermen from Cyprus."

"Fishermen? Where do they land? At the harbor?"

"No. My people do not like them, though the governor threatens to send troops if we do not let them land. So they come to a little creek at the opposite end of the island, on the other side of the mountain. Ah, what are you thinking of?"

As Euphrosyne perceived, her words had put a new idea in my mind. If I could reach that creek and find the fishermen and persuade them to help me, or to carry me and my party off, that hanging might happen to the right man, after all.

"You're thinking you can reach them?" she cried.

"You don't seem sure that you want me to," I observed.

"Oh, how can I tell what I want? If I help you, I am betraying the island. If I do not--"

"You'll have a death or two at your door, and you'll marry the biggest scoundrel in Europe," said I.

She hung her head, and plucked fretfully at the embroidery on the neck of her dress.

"But, anyhow, you couldn't reach them," she said. "You are close prisoners here."

That, again, seemed true, so true that it put me in a very bad temper. Therefore I rose, and, leaving her without much ceremony, strolled into the kitchen. Here I found Watkins dressing the cow's head, Hogvardt surrounded by knives, and Denny lying on a rug on the floor with a small book, which he seemed to be reading. He looked up with a smile that he. considered knowing.

"Well, what does the captive queen say?" he asked with levity.

"She proposes to marry Constantine," I answered, and added quickly to Hogvardt: "What's the game with those knives, Hog?"

"Well, my lord," said Hogvardt, surveying his dozen murderous instruments, "I thought there was no harm in putting an edge on them, in case we should find a use for them;" and he fell to grinding one with great energy.

"I say, Charlie, I wonder what this yarn's about? I can't construe half of it. It's in Greek, and it's something about Neopalia, and there's a lot about a Stefanopoulos."

"Is there? Let's see;" and taking the book I sat down to look at it. It was a slim old book, bound in calfskin. The Greek was written in an antique style; it was verse. I turned to the title-page. "Hullo, this is rather interesting," I exclaimed. "It's about the death of old Stefanopoulos--the man they sing that song about, you know."

In fact, I had got hold of the poem which One-eyed Alexander composed. Its length was about three hundred lines, exclusive of the refrain which the islanders had chanted, and which was inserted six times, occurring at the end of each fifty lines. The rest was written in rather barbarous iambics; and the sentiments were quite as barbarous as the verse. It told the whole story, and I ran rapidly over it, translating here and there for the benefit of my companions. The arrival of the Baron d'Ezonville recalled our own with curious exactness, except that he came with one servant only. He had been taken to the inn, as I had, but he had never escaped from there, and had been turned adrift the morning after his arrival. I took more interest in Stefan, and followed eagerly the story of how the islanders had come to his house, and demanded that he should revoke the sale. Stefan, however, was obstinate; it lost the lives of four of his assailants before his house was forced. Thus far I read, and expected to find next an account of a _mêlée_ in the hall. But here the story took a turn unexpected by me, one that might make the reading of the old poem more than a mere pastime.

"But when they had broken in," said One-eyed Alexander, "behold, the hall was empty and the house empty! And they stood amazed. But the two cousins of the lord, who had been the hottest in seeking his death, put all the rest to the door, and were themselves alone in the house; for the secret was known to them who were of the blood of the Stefanopouloi. Unto me, the bard, it is not known. Yet men say they went beneath the earth, and there in the earth found the lord. And certain it is they slew him, for in a space they came forth to the door bearing his head, and they showed it to the people, who answered with a great shout. But the cousins went back, barring the door again; and again, when but a few minutes had passed, they came forth, and opened the door, and the elder of them, being now by the traitor's death become lord, bade the people in and made a great feast for them. But the head of Stefan none saw again, nor did any see his body; but the body and head were gone, whither none know saving the noble blood of the Stefanopouloi; for utterly they disappeared, and the secret was securely kept."

I read this passage aloud, translating as I went. At the end Denny drew a breath.

"Well, if there aren't ghosts in this house, there ought to be," he remarked. "What the deuce did those rascals do with the old gentleman, Charlie?"

"It says 'they went beneath the earth.'"

"The cellar," suggested Hogvardt, who had a prosaic mind.

"But they wouldn't leave the body in the cellar," I objected; "and if, as this fellow says, they were only away a few minutes, they couldn't have dug a grave for it. And then it says that they 'there in the earth found the lord'!"

"It would have been more interesting," said Denny, "if they'd told Alexander a bit more about it. However, I suppose he consoles himself with his chant again?"

"He does. It follows immediately on what I've read, and so the thing ends." And I sat looking at the little yellow volume. "Where did you find it, Denny?" I said.

"Oh, on a shelf in the corner of the hall, between the Bible and a Life of Byron."

I got up and walked back to the hall. I looked round. Euphrosyne was not there. I inspected the hall door; it was still locked on the inside. I mounted the stairs, and called at the door of her room; when no answer came I pushed it open and took the liberty of glancing round; she was not there. I called again, for I thought she might have passed along the way over the hall and reached the roof, as she had done before. This time I called loudly. Silence followed for a moment. Then came an answer, in a hurried, rather apologetic tone, "Here I am." But then the answer came, not from the direction that I had expected, but from the hall. And looking over the balustrade, I saw Euphrosyne sitting in the armchair.

"This," said I, going down-stairs, "taken in conjunction with this," and I patted One-eyed Alexander's book, which I held in my hand, "is certainly curious and suggestive." "Here I am," said Euphrosyne, with an air that added, "I've not moved. What are you shouting for?"

"Yes, but you weren't there a minute ago," I observed, reaching the hall and walking across to her.

She looked disturbed and embarrassed.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"Must I give an account of every movement?" said she, trying to cover her confusion with a show of haughty offence.

The coincidence was really a remarkable one; it was as hard to account for Euphrosyne's disappearance and reappearance as for the vanished head and body of old Stefan. I had a conviction, based on a sudden intuition, that one explanation must lie at the root of both these curious things, that the secret of which Alexander spoke was a secret still hidden, hidden from my eyes but known to the girl before me, the daughter of the Stefanopouloi.

"I won't ask you where you've been, if you don't wish to tell me," said I, carelessly.

She bowed her head in recognition of my indulgence.

"But there is one question I should like to ask you," I pursued, "if you'll be so kind as to answer it."

"Well, what is it?"

"Where was Stefan Stefanopoulos killed, and what became of his body?"

As I put my question I flung One-eyed Alexander's book open on the table beside her.

She started visibly, crying, "Where did you get that?"

I told her how Denny had found it, and I added:

"Now, what does 'beneath the earth' mean? You are one of the house, and you must know."

"Yes, I know, but I must not tell you. We are all bound by the most sacred oath to tell no one."

"Who told you?"

"My uncle. The boys of our house are told when they are fifteen, the girls when they are sixteen. No one else knows."

"And why is that?"

She hesitated, fearing perhaps that her answer would itself tend to betray the secret.

"I dare tell you nothing," she said. "The oath binds me; and it binds every one of my kindred to kill me if I break it."

"But you've no kindred left except Constantine," I objected.

"He is enough. He would kill me."

"Sooner than marry you?" I suggested, rather maliciously.

"Yes, if I broke the oath."

"Hang the oath!" said I, impatiently. "The thing might help us. Did they bury Stefan somewhere under the house?"

"No, he was not buried," she answered.

"Then they brought him up, and got rid of his body when the islanders had gone?"

"You must think what you will."

"I'll find it out," said I. "If I pull the house down, I'll find it. Is it a secret door or--"

She had colored at the question. I put the latter part in a low, eager voice, for hope had come to me.

"Is it a way out?" I asked, leaning over to her.

She sat mute, but irresolute, embarrassed and fretful.

"Heavens!" I cried, impatiently, "it may mean life or death to all of us, and you boggle over your oath!"

My rude impatience met with a rebuke that it perhaps deserved. With a glance of the utmost scorn, Euphrosyne asked, coldly:

"And what are the lives of all of you to me?"

"True, I forgot," said I with a bitter politeness. "I beg your pardon. I did you all the service I could last night, and now I and my friends may as well die as live! But I'll pull this place to ruin but I'll find your secret."

I was walking up and down now in a state of some excitement. My brain was fired with the thought of stealing a march on Constantine through the discovery of his own family secret.

Suddenly Euphrosyne gave a little soft clap with her hands. It was over in a minute, and she sat blushing, confused, trying to look as if she had not done it at all.

"What did you do that for?" I asked, stopping in front of her.

"Nothing," said Euphrosyne.

"Oh, I don't believe that," said I.

She looked at me. "I didn't mean to do it," she said again. "But can't you guess why?"

"There's too much guessing to be done here," said I, impatiently; and I started walking again. But presently I heard a voice say softly, and in a tone that seemed to address nobody in particular--me least of all:

"We Neopalians like a man who can be angry, and I began to think you never would."

"I am not the least angry," said I, with great indignation. I hate being told that I am angry when I am merely showing firmness.

Now, at this protest of mine Euphrosyne saw fit to laugh--the most hearty laugh she had given since I had known her. The mirthfulness of it undermined my wrath. I stood still opposite her, biting the end of my mustache.

"You may laugh," said I, "but I'm not angry; and I shall pull this house down--or dig it up--in cold blood, in perfectly cold blood."

"You are angry," said Euphrosyne, "and you say you're not. You are like my father. He would stamp his foot furiously like that and say, 'I am not angry, I am not angry, Phroso.'"

Phroso! I had forgotten that diminutive of my guest's classical name. It rather pleased me, and I repeated it gently after her, "Phroso, Phroso," and I'm afraid I eyed the little foot that had stamped so bravely.

"He always called me Phroso. Oh, I wish he were alive! Then Constantine--"

"Since he isn't," said I, sitting by Phroso (I must write it, it's a deal shorter)--by Phroso's elbow--"since he isn't, I'll look after Constantine. It would be a pity to spoil the house, wouldn't it?"

"I've sworn," said Phroso.

"Circumstances alter oaths," said I, bending till I was very near Phroso's ear.

"Ah," said Phroso, reproachfully, "that's what lovers say when they find another more beautiful than their old love."

I shot away from Phroso's ear with a sudden backward start. Her remark, somehow, came home to me with a very remarkable force. I got off the table, and stood opposite to her, in an awkward and stiff attitude.

"I am compelled to ask you for the last time if you will tell me the secret," said I, in the coldest of tones.

She looked up with surprise. My altered manner may well have amazed her. She did not know the reason of it.

"You asked me kindly and--and pleasantly, and I would not. Now you ask me as if you threatened," she said. "Is it likely I should tell you now?"

Well, I was angry with myself, and with her because she had made me angry with myself; and, the next minute, I became furiously angry with Denny, whom I found standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen, with a grin of intense amusement on his face.

"What are you grinning at?" I demanded fiercely.

"Oh, nothing," said Denny, and his face strove to assume a prudent gravity.

"Bring a pickaxe," said I.

Denny's face wandered toward Phroso. "Is she as annoying as that?" he seemed to ask. "A pickaxe?" he repeated in surprised tones.

"Yes, two pickaxes! I'm going to have this floor up, and see if I can find out the great Stefanopoulos secret." I spoke with an accent of intense scorn.

Again Phroso laughed; her hands beat very softly against one another. Heavens, what did she do that for when Denny was there, watching everything with those shrewd eyes of his?

"The pickaxes!" I roared.

Denny turned and fled; a moment elapsed; I did not know what to do, how to look at Phroso, or how not to look at her. I took refuge in flight. I rushed into the kitchen on pretence of aiding or hastening Denny's search. I found him taking up an old pick that stood near the door leading to the compound. I seized it from his hand.

"Confound you!" I cried, for Denny laughed openly at me; and I rushed back to the hall! But on the threshold I paused--and said what I will not write.

For, though there came from somewhere just the last ripple of a mirthful laugh, the hall was empty! Phroso was gone! I flung the pickaxe down with a clatter on the boards, and exclaimed in my haste:

"I wish to heaven I'd never bought the island!"

But I did not mean that really.

(_To be continued._)

CLIMBING MONT BLANC IN A BLIZZARD.

CAUGHT IN A BLINDING SNOW STORM ON A NARROW CLIFF, TWO AND A HALF MILES ABOVE SEA LEVEL.

BY GARRETT P. SERVISS,

Author of "Astronomy with an Opera Glass," "Climbing the Matterhorn,"[15] etc.

[Footnote 15: See MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for September, 1895.]

Standing on the spindling tower of the Matterhorn early one August morning in 1894 I saw, for the first time, the white crown of Europe, Mont Blanc, with its snows sparkling high above the roof of clouds that covered the dozing summer in the valleys of Piedmont. Just one year later I started from Chamonix to climb to that cool world in the blue.

My guide was Ambroise Couttet, whose family name is famous in the mountaineering annals of Savoy. An earlier Ambroise Couttet lies in the icy bosom of Mont Blanc, fallen, years ago, down a crevasse so profound that his would-be rescuers were drawn, baffled, awe-struck, and with shaking nerves, from its horrible depths, whose bottom they could not find. Even before that time Pierre Couttet had been whirled to death on the great peak, and his body, embedded and preserved in a glacier, was found nearly half a century afterward at its foot. And two other Couttets of past years escaped, by the merest hair of miraculous fortune, from a catastrophe on the same dreadful slopes in which three of their comrades were swallowed up. Yet the Ambroise Couttet of to-day is never so happy as when he is on the mountain. His eyes sparkle if he hears the thunder of an avalanche, and he smiles as he watches its tossing white crest ploughing swiftly across some snowy incline which he has just traversed.

One porter sufficed, for my only traps consisted of a hand camera, a field-glass, and a few extra woollen shirts and stockings. Having had no serious exercise since climbing the Matterhorn a year before, I deemed it prudent to spare my strength for the more important work above by taking a mule to the Pierre Pointue. It was a fine morning, offering a promise of favorable weather after several days of mist and rain. Monsieur Janssen, the French astronomer, who was waiting at Chamonix for his porters to complete their long and wearisome labor of transporting piecemeal his telescope and other instruments of observation to the summit, before making the ascent himself, said, grasping my arm at parting:

"I wish you good luck; good weather you are sure of."

From a photograph loaned by Mr. Frank Hegger, New York.]

It was high authority, for Monsieur Janssen has studied the weather all his life, and knows the atmosphere of mountain peaks and of the airy levels where balloons float; yet if he could have foreseen what was to occur on Mont Blanc within twenty hours, he would have wished me the good fortune of being somewhere else.

It was past the middle of the forenoon of the 10th of August when, with Couttet and the porter, I left Chamonix. Dismissing my tired mule at the Pierre Pointue, which hangs with its flag nearly seven thousand feet above sea level, and high over the séracs of the Glacier des Bossons, we began the ascent by way of the Pierre a l'Echelle and over the missile-scarred foot of the Aiguille du Midi. The upper part of this mountain as seen from Chamonix looks quite sharp-pointed enough to deserve its name of the "Needle of the South." The side toward the Glacier des Bossons is exceedingly steep, and when the snows are melting the peak becomes a perfect catapult, volleys of ice and stones being discharged from its lofty precipices. The falling rocks, dropping, as some of them do, from ledge to ledge half a mile, acquire the velocity of cannon shots. Nobody ever lingers on this part of the route, and we had no desire to pause, although the Aiguille sends comparatively few stones down so late in the summer.

The sun beat furiously while we were scrambling on the rocks, and the latter were warm to the touch, although, thousands of feet below, the immense cleft in the mountain side was choked with masses of never-melted ice.

"Never mind," said Couttet, as I stopped to wipe the perspiration from my face, "it will be cool enough when we get onto the glacier."

And it was--so cool in fact that I hastily pulled on my coat. Having passed out of range of the Aiguille du Midi, we found comfortable going on the ice.

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS OF THE ROUTE.

The northern slope of Mont Blanc is hollowed into a vast cavernous channel, half filled with glaciers, and edged on the east by the Mont Maudit, the Aiguille de Saussure, and the Aiguille du Midi, and on the west by the Dome and Aiguille du Gouter and the Gros Bechat. Down this tremendous gutter crowd the eternal snows of Mont Blanc, compressed toward the bottom into the Glacier des Bossons and the Glacier de Taconnaz. These immense ice streams are separated by the projecting nose of the Montagne de la Cote, which rises from the valley of Chamonix and lies in a long, dark ridge on the foot of Mont Blanc. Above the Montagne de la Cote several gigantic rock masses, shooting into pinnacles, push up through the ice from the bottom and near the centre of the channel. These are called the Grands Mulets, from the resemblance which they present, when seen from Chamonix, to a row of huge black mules tramping up the white mountain side.

I mention these features because the best route to the summit of Mont Blanc lies over the glaciers and snow fields and between the walls of the great trough I have described, and the first station is at the Grands Mulets, where a cabin for the accommodation of climbers has existed for many years. From the foot of the Aiguille du Midi, at the Pierre a l'Echelle, across the Glacier des Bossons to the rocks of the Grands Mulets the distance is about a mile and a quarter, and the perpendicular increase of elevation nearly two thousand feet. The passage seldom presents any difficulty, except to inexperienced persons, although at times many crevasses must be crossed, particularly at what is called the Junction, just above the point where the Glacier des Bossons and the Glacier de Taconnaz are divided by the Montagne de la Cote. Here some underlying irregularity of the rocks, deep beneath the surface of the mighty river of ice, causes the formation of a labyrinth of fissures and crevasses, overhung with towering séracs, or ice turrets; and the ice descends between the Grands Mulets and the rock wall in front of the Gros Bechat in a sort of motionless cascade--motionless, that is to say, except when cracks break apart into yawning chasms, and massive blocks tumble into the depths.

Even a practised climber is occasionally compelled to look to his steps in passing the Junction. On my return I witnessed an accident in this place which proved at the same time the reality of the danger and the usefulness in sudden crises of the mountaineer's rope. A tourist descending from the Grands Mulets was passing, under an impending sérac, around the head of a crevasse, where the only footway was a few inches of ice hewn with the axe. Being heedless or nervous, his feet shot from under him, and with a yell he plunged into the pit. Luckily, he was tied to the rope between two guides, one of whom had passed the dangerous corner, while the other, behind, had also a safe footing. As he fell the guides braced themselves, the rope zipped, and the unfortunate adventurer hung clutching and kicking at the polished blue wall. He had really descended but a few feet into the crevasse, though to him doubtless it seemed a hundred, and with a surprising display of strength, or skill, the guides hauled him out by simply tightening the rope. One of them pulled back and the other forward, and between them the sprawling victim rose with the strain to the brink of the chasm, where a third man dexterously caught and landed him.

Madame Marke and Olivier Gay were not so fortunate near this spot in 1870. A bridge of snow spanning a crevasse gave way beneath them, and, the rope breaking, they disappeared and perished in the abyss.

We reached the Grands Mulets in the middle of the afternoon. Here the great majority of amateur climbers are content to terminate their ascent of Mont Blanc. The experience of getting as far as this point and back again is, as the incidents just related show, anything but insignificant, and may prove not only exciting but even tragic. Yet, of course, the real work, the tug of war between human endurance and the obstacles of untamed nature, is above. The Grands Mulets formed the stopping place in some of the earliest attempts to climb Mont Blanc, more than a hundred years ago. Here Jacques Balmat, the hero of the first ascent, passed an awful night alone, amid the cracking of glaciers and the shaking of avalanches, before his final victory over the peak in 1786. In the spirit which led the Romans to surname the conqueror of Hannibal "Scipio Africanus," the exultant Chamonniards called their hero "Balmat de Mont Blanc." He, too, finally perished by a fall from a precipice in 1834, and to-day there are those who whisper that his spirit can be seen flitting over the snowy wastes before every new catastrophe.

The cabin at the Grands Mulets is furnished with rough bunks and cooking apparatus, and during the summer a woman, Adéle Balmat, assisted by the guides, acts as hostess for this high-perched "inn," ten thousand feet above sea level.

It is customary to leave the Grands Mulets for the ascent to the summit soon after midnight, in order to get over the immense snow slopes before the action of the sun has loosened the avalanches and weakened the crevasse bridges. But we did not start until half-past three in the morning. The waning moon, hanging over the Dome du Gouter, gave sufficient light to render a lantern unnecessary, and dawn was near at hand. Threatening bands of clouds attracted anxious glances from Couttet, and it was evident that a change of weather impended. But we clambered over the rocks to the crevassed slopes below the Gouter, and pushed upward.

We were now approaching the higher and narrower portion of the immense cleft or channel in the mountain that I have described. On our right towered the Dome du Gouter, and on the left the walls of the Mont Maudit and its outlying pinnacles. Snowy ridges and peaks shone afar in the moonlight on all sides. It was a wilderness of white.

At the height of twelve thousand feet we came upon the Petit Plateau, a comparatively horizontal lap of snow which is frequently swept clear across with avalanches of ice descending from the enormous séracs that hang like cornices upon the precipices above. The frosty splinters of a recent downfall sparkled and crunched under our feet. It is one of the most dangerous places on the mountain. "Men have lost their lives here and will again lose them," is the remark of Mr. Conway, the Himalayan climber, in describing his passage of the place. "Many times I have crossed it," said Monsieur Vallot, the mountain meteorologist, last summer, "but never without a sinking of the heart, and the moment we are over the Petit Plateau I always hear my guides, trained and fearless men, mutter, 'Once more we are out of it.'"

Knowing these things, it is needless to say that I found the Petit Plateau keenly interesting. The menacing séracs leaned from the cliffs, glittering icily, and threw black shadows upon the _névé_ beneath, but suffered us to pass unmolested.

Above the Petit Plateau is a steep ascent called the Grands Montées which taxes the breath. Having surmounted this, we were on the Grand Plateau, a much wider level than the other, edged with tremendous ice cliffs and crevasses, and situated at an elevation of thirteen thousand feet. For some time now it had been broad day, but the clouds had thickened rapidly, and the summit was wrapped and completely hidden in them. Blasts of frigid wind began to whistle about us, driving stinging pellets of ice into our faces. We quickened our steps, for it would not do to be caught in a storm here. The Grand Plateau has taken more lives than its ill-starred neighbor below.

A BLINDING STORM OF SNOW AND WIND.

We now bore off to the right, in order to clamber up the side of the great channel, or depression, that we had thus far followed, because at its upper end, where it meets the base of the crowning pyramid of Mont Blanc, it abuts against ice-covered precipices that no mortal will ever scale. Snow commenced to fall, and the wind rose. As we neared the crest of the ridge connecting the Dome du Gouter with the Bosses du Dromadaire and the summit, the tempest burst fiercely upon us. In an instant we were enveloped by a cloud of whirling snow that blotted out sky and mountains alike. It drove into my eyes, and half blinded me. It was so thick that objects a few yards away would have been concealed even without a violent wind to confuse the vision. At times Couttet, close ahead of me, was visible only in a kind of gray outline, like a wraith. On an open plain such a storm in such a temperature would have had its dangers for a traveller seeking his way. We were seeking our way, not on an open plain, but two miles and a half above sea level, in a desert of snow and ice, encompassed with precipices, chasms, and pitfalls, treading on we knew not what, assailed by a wild storm, all landmarks obliterated, and our footsteps filling so fast with drifted snow that in two minutes we could not see from what direction we had last come.

In such a situation the imagination becomes dramatic. The night before I had been reading the account of the loss, in 1870, of Dr. Bean, Mr. Randall, and the Rev. Mr. Corkendale, together with five guides and three porters, eleven persons in all, in just such a storm and within sight of this spot. And now as we stumbled along I repeated to myself, almost word for word, Dr. Bean's message to his wife, found when his body was discovered:

"September 7, evening--My dear Hessie: We have been two days on Mont Blanc in the midst of a terrible hurricane of snow; we have lost our way, and are in a hole scooped in the snow at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet. I have no longer any hope of descending. Perhaps this notebook will be found and sent to you. We have nothing to eat, my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted. I have strength to write only a few words more. I have left means for C.'s education; I know you will employ them wisely. I die with faith in God and with loving thoughts of you. Farewell to all. We shall meet again in heaven--I think of you always."

The bodies of five of these victims were found but a few feet aside from the proper route which in clear weather would have led to safety; the other six had disappeared.

While such cheerful recollections were running through my mind I noticed that we were no longer ascending, and that Couttet, whom I had not troubled with questions as long as he showed no hesitation, was bearing now this way and now that, and occasionally stopping and peering about with spread nostrils, like a dog seeking a trail. Clearly we were on the top of the highest elevation in our neighborhood, for the wind now came point blank in our faces out of the white abyss of the atmosphere, and almost blew me off my feet.

"Have you lost the way?" I asked.

"I'll find it," Couttet replied.

"Where are we?"

"Near the Bosses."

"Isn't there a refuge hut on the Bosses?"

"Yes."

"Can we reach it?"

Couttet did not immediately reply, but looked up and about, as if trying to pierce the driving snow with his gaze. "If I could catch sight of the rocks," at length he said.

Suddenly the gale seemed to split the clouds, and for an instant a vision opened of blue sky over our heads, and endless slopes of snow, falling one below another, under our feet. I saw that we were standing on the rounded back of a snowy ridge. Just in front the white surface dipped and disappeared in a vast gulf of air, where flying clouds were torn against the black jagged points of lower mountains. Above our level, to the left, rocks appeared projecting through the covering of snow. I knew that these must belong to the Bosses du Dromadaire, and that the hut we sought was perched on one of them.

All this the eye caught in a twinkling, for the storm curtain was lifted only to be as quickly dropped again, shutting out both the upper and the lower world, and leaving us isolated on the slippery roof ridge of Europe. At the same time the wind increased its violence, and the cold became more penetrating. I pulled my fingers out of the digits of my woollen gloves, and gripped my iron-shod baton between thumb and knuckles. We now had our bearings, thanks to the momentary glance, and it behooved us not to lose them, for the storm was every instant growing worse. At times it was not the simplest thing in the world to keep one's feet in the face of the blasts. I was too fresh from reading the history of Mont Blanc not to remember that a few years ago Count Villanova and two guides were blown from another nearby ridge into the very abyss whose jaws had just opened before us, where their bodies lie undiscovered to this day.

Moving cautiously, we began to descend, in order to cross the neck which stretches between the Dome du Gouter and the Bosses. When we wandered a little to the right the surface commenced to pitch off, and we knew what that meant--beware! Once when we had veered too far to the left, staggering down hill under the blows of the storm, and able to see but a few feet away, we stopped as if a shot had arrested us. Another step or two would have carried us over a precipice of ice, whose blue wall fell perpendicularly from the brittle edge at our feet into cloud-choked depths. We had gone down our roof to the eaves. Not a word was spoken, but with instant unanimity we turned and scrambled up again, Couttet in the lead, and the porter breathing hard at my heels. Such a scene in the fraction of a second is photographed on the memory for a lifetime.

In a little while we began to ascend another slope, to which we had felt our way, and this was surely the swelling hump of the first of the Bosses, and the rocks must be near at hand. Another opportune gap in the clouds, which left us for an instant surrounded with retreating walls of vapor, confirmed that opinion, and vindicated the mountaineering skill of Couttet, who had found the way though way there was none. A quick, breathless scramble up a confused heap of ice and slippery points of rock brought us at last to the refuge.

A NIGHT OF SCANT SHELTER AND NO FOOD.

Couttet shook and banged the door, making a noise that did not penetrate far through the whistling air, and, with cold fingers, began fumbling at the latch, when, to my surprise, the door opened and a muffled voice bade us enter. An Englishman who had started with his guides at midnight from the Grands Mulets, and three or four of Monsieur Janssen's porters, had already sought refuge in the hut. Icicles hung about my face, and my clothes were as stiff as chain armor. There was no fire in the little hut and no means of making any. My watch, when I was able to get it out of my pocket, showed the time to be a quarter to nine A.M.

Pulling off our shoes and putting on dry stockings as quickly as possible, we imitated the example of the man who had let us in, and who no sooner closed the door than he tumbled back into his bunk and buried himself in the rough woollen blankets which the Alpine Club has provided for the use of those who may need them.

In about an hour the storm lightened, and the Englishman and the porters started back to the Grands Mulets. I consulted Couttet about making a dash for the summit; but he thought it would be better to wait awhile, and better still to follow the others down the mountain. To this last proposition I decidedly objected, although Couttet was right, as it turned out; for in another hour the storm, which had not entirely ceased at any time, whipped itself into renewed fury, and before noon the wind was howling and shrieking with demoniac energy, and flinging gritty snow and ice in blinding clouds against the hut, which, situated on a ridge, was completely exposed. Fortunately it is strongly built and solidly anchored. While I entertained no reasonable doubt of its security, yet when a blast of extraordinary fierceness made it tremble, as if it were holding itself with desperate grip upon the rocks, I could not help picturing it, in imagination, taking flight at last, and sailing high over the mountains in the wild embrace of the tempest.

Time moved with a dreadfully slow pace. The only way to keep warm was to remain in the bunk under a pile of blankets. Once, in my impatience, I got out and painfully hauled on my shoes, which were as cold as ice, and as hard almost; but my feet were blistered through lack of previous exercise, and after hobbling and shivering for a few minutes on the narrow floor, which was partly covered with a constantly accumulating deposit of snow, as fine and dry as flour and as frigid as though it had come straight from the Arctic Circle, I hurried back under the blankets. The invading snow penetrated through cracks that one could hardly see, around the door and the little square window.

At last noon came, and we ate our remaining morsels of dry bread, which finished our provisions. We had brought along only enough to provide a lunch on the way to the summit, intending to be back at the Grands Mulets not later than midday. Then the long afternoon dragged its weary hours, while the storm got higher, shriller, and colder, and the sense of our isolation became keener. Finally daylight began to fade. Slowly the light grew dim in the window at my feet, until it was a mere glimmer. Since we had to stay, we thanked the storm for hastening the fall of night. When the gloom became so dense that even the window had disappeared, Couttet lit a tallow dip, but it would not remain upright in its improvised holder, and the freezing draughts that stole through the hut kept it flickering so that he finally put it out, and we remained in the dark, not "seein' things," like Eugene Field's youthful hero, but hearing things no less uncanny. The wind whistled, moaned, screeched, growled, and occasionally shouted with such startling imitation of human voices that I once asked Couttet if some one were not calling for help. But investigation showed that we were alone on our tempestuous perch, and that the cry of agony had been uttered by the hurricane, or the wind-lashed rocks.

Supperless, we wrapped our blankets closer, got ears and noses under, and tried to sleep. I had a few naps, but the roar outside, and the shaking of the hut as the storm smote it again and again, rendered continuous sleep impossible. Something had been loosened on the roof close overhead, and it rattled and banged as if the destruction of the hut had actually begun. It was a queer sound, angry, imperious, menacing, and it produced a quaking sensation. Sometimes it would die down, and, with a final rap or two, entirely cease. Then it would resume, with perhaps five strokes to the second, increasing to ten, then to twenty, and quickly rising to an ear-splitting r-r-r-h, terminated with a bang! bang!! bang!!! that made the heart leap, while the hut seemed to rock on its foundations.

Getting out of the bunk, I found by the sense of touch that the powdery snow-drifts were becoming steadily deeper on the floor. This recalled another incident which had greatly interested me during my preliminary reading at Chamonix. The winter before, Monsieur Janssen's men had stored some of the heavier materials for his observatory near these rocks. At the opening of summer they could not be found, and no one knew what had become of them. Finally, as the snows melted and fell from the peak in slides and avalanches, the missing articles were uncovered, having been buried in a white grave forty feet deep.

And so the wild night passed, until with tedious deliberation the little window made a hole in the darkness, and I knew that morning was at hand. The howling without was as loud as ever, and the fine snow was packed high upon the window, shutting out a good share of the light. The floor was covered with white drifts, and my shoes had swallowed snow; but being hard and dry, it was easily shaken out. There was no fire to be built and no breakfast to be prepared. But it was impossible to lie still, even for the sake of keeping warm, and pulling on our shoes we stamped about the floor, and occasionally opened the door to see what the storm was about. Along about eight o'clock it began to lighten, and my hopes rose. We could catch an occasional glimpse of the crowning peak and of the observatory, which we knew contained two or three of Janssen's men and some provisions. An hour later, when the storm seemed about at an end, and we were preparing to ascend to the top, we saw the men from the observatory coming down. They warned us that the snow above was in bad condition, and, believing that more foul weather was to come, they were embracing this opportunity to get down. Couttet proposed that we should accompany them, especially as they reported nothing left to eat at the observatory, but I declined. Again the event proved that he was right, for while we waited a little before starting out, the storm fell upon us once more. Then Couttet insisted upon descending, and I did not think it wise to oppose his decision, knowing that it was based upon experience and that he had nothing to gain and something to lose in returning without having conducted his "monsieur" to the summit.

A SECOND ATTEMPT FOR THE SUMMIT.

We put on the rope and scrambled down, but when we got upon the neck below the Bosses the clouds whirled off and the burnished sun stood over the white peak, too splendid to be looked upon.

"Couttet, we must go up," I exclaimed.

"As you say," he replied; and we turned upon our track.