Chapter XIX: A Rotten Piece of Rock

THE belt which they had reached was both higher and more formidable than the one already surmounted; a stern and frowning rampart, giving access to the short arête by which they would gain the summit.

Seen from below, it looked like a bare wall of rock, seamed indeed with cracks and chimneys, but little less than perpendicular. Tiny patches of whiteness lay wherever it had been able to find a resting-place. For the greater part, however, the angle was too steep for snow to lie; and, as regarded the question of climbing, in mountain parlance "it would not go." A climber's only hope lay in the narrow snow-lined couloirs streaking it, one of which seemed to offer good promise for foothold and handhold.

It was a more awkward "pitch" than Pressford had expected. And, to make matters worse, the rocks were partially glazed with that terror of mountaineers, the dangerous verglas, a thin veneer of ice. Wherever this delicate coating shone, foothold was impossible.

From their position below a small bergshrund, choked with snow, the two men took an anxious survey of the rocks, which indeed wore a menacing aspect enough, especially for a tyro. Doris stood by in acute suspense; for she realised that one word now might dash all her hopes to the ground. And to give up—to turn back—having advanced so far, would be too dreadful! She read doubt in their faces; and imploring words leaped to her lips. Wisely, she held them back, though her face was eloquent.

Maurice glanced at his companion, and murmured something. Pressford put off immediate decision, by suggesting another meal. The narrow snow-plateau, from which that rocky wall uprose, made an ideal breakfast-table, spread with the purest of snowy cloths.

"I may go on!" Doris breathed, as Maurice came near.

"We'll see—presently." He threw down the rück-sack, emptied of its contents, and offered it to her for a seat. For himself he planted his ice-axe deep in the snow,—a narrow support, which called for careful balancing on his part.

Pressford had unroped and gone off a short distance to reconnoitre; and on his return he beckoned Maurice aside.

"She can do it," he said. "I see how it will 'go.'"

"But the verglas—"

"Only in patches. They can be avoided."

"Shall we start now?" called Doris eagerly.

"Finish the sandwiches first. We shall have no other chance for some time. I'll scramble up a bit, and have one more look. Then—en avant!"

Still free of the rope, he moved some paces away, munching chocolate, and scanning the rocks which frowned grimly above. Maurice came back to his seat by Doris.

They had the world to themselves. Pressford, always aloof and preoccupied, hardly counted.

From their very feet the snow-slope fell away. Behind rose the stern rock-rampart, calling to be climbed. But their eyes were turned to the wide sweep of mountain pastures far below, and downward thence to valleys shepherding cloudlets of morning mist.

Like birds they were perched aloft; away from common life; cut off from human habitations.

To right and left the gaze rested on snow-clad heights, rocky buttresses, sharp needles; all the fantastic wildness of bristling and icy arêtes; of rocky mountain-sides, seamed with gullies; of snowy mountain-sides, broken by outcrops of bare rock; of hanging glaciers, glittering in sunshine. Peak lay beyond peak; snow-field stretched beyond snow-field. To Doris this wonderful tableau brought a sense of joy; not gay delight, but solemn uplifting rapture.

"It's beyond words," she said. "It is—sublime. But that doesn't explain. Words don't seem strong enough."

"There are things that can only be felt, not said."

"I think I meant that. It is the width—the greatness—the immensity! All earth and sky and heaven. Nothing small or puny. Don't you feel as if you didn't want ever to go back to the paltriness of everyday life?"

"Is everyday life paltry?"

"Compared with—" Her glance swept the scene.

"Even compared with this. It all depends on what one lives for?"

"You mean—doing things for other people. But they are such tiny things. This is so grand—so vast! It seems to lift up one's whole being."

"If you were here always, the force of first impressions would fade. And that question would still push its way to the front."

"The question—what one lives for—do you mean?"

"Yes. Whether for Duty—or only for Self."

A slight pause followed. "If only one's duties weren't so often just the very things one most dislikes!"

A look in her companion's face somehow recalled her father. He asked simply—

"Don't you think that the less one minds about one's own likings, the better? And after all,—obedience against the grain is always grander than doing what one wishes. That may land one on a mountain-top."

"Yes—I see. I suppose—" and she smiled—"when you gave up your climb that day, for the sake of Mr. Ramsay, you really got to a higher peak than if you had gone up the Grand Muveran."

He laughed.

"Very kind of you to say so. But that was a simple necessity. Nothing else could have been possible."

"And since then you've never been able to go, because you have been so busy, teaching me to climb." That some self-denial might be involved in this had not earlier occurred to her. She looked at him gratefully. "But anyhow—you have the work in life that you like. You are not one of those people who seem put down in just the wrong place. You wouldn't wish to change!"

"It is the work I have to do. It was not my choice."

"But how—Was it settled for you?"

"Practically. My business now is to make the best of it. We can always learn to like what we have to do."

"Can we?" The corners of her mouth curled rebelliously. "But I like to choose for myself. I like to be free."

"Most of us do. But there's a higher standing than just personal freedom."

"And the higher—?" she questioned.

"Carrying out the will of another, against one's own will—because it is one's duty."

"Carrying out—anybody's will!"

"I meant, primarily—the Divine Will."

She considered this soberly.

"But—if one can do the things that one likes better than the things one doesn't like—wouldn't that be best?"

"Not from the point of view of character-making. When a man does his best badly in the line that he does not love, it is actually better, actually worth more, than if he were successful to any amount in the line that he would love. Of course we're right to do the work we prefer, when it's given us to do. But the other may have grander results. Men are not always called to what they would choose for themselves."

She pondered this again, then said with a smile—

"Curious that we should have got into such a grave talk, up here!"

"One often does," he replied; and it was true, as many have found in their position. The splendour of a scene, such as that on which they gazed, does not lend itself to moods of frivolity. Pastures dotted with human homes may consort with gaiety; but the wild solitudes of mountain heights are not gay. They seem rather to be intensely earnest; uplifted above light talk and merriment; brooding solemnly over earth's smallness; apart from lesser interests; leading the minds of those who gain their presence to deeper and higher topics.

Pressford, having gone farther than he intended, now came crunching over the hard snow. It was all right, he said,—and "a rare sporting bit." His quiet eyes held an unwonted gleam in them, as of a mountain warrior, eager for the fray, thirsting for a fight with Nature's obstacles.

But for Maurice all was not so clear. With regard to Pressford and himself, the climb might be practicable enough. Could it be looked upon as right for the girl? That was the real question, and he did not attempt to hide his anxiety.

"Indeed, indeed, I'm not afraid," urged Doris. "I'm not one least little atom afraid. It is all so much easier than I expected. And I'm splendidly fresh still. And to go back now—oh, it would be too desperately disappointing. Please, please, don't make me!"

"She can do it," once more asserted Pressford's imperturbable voice.

"I don't half like her to try."

"Well,—we'll put matters to the test. She shall wait here, while you and I do part of the way. If we find that it 'goes,' you shall come down for her on the rope; and I'll haul her up. That does away with risks. The awkward part is certainly not more than a hundred feet or so. Once over that, we shall be all right."

This plan, after some further discussion, was adopted. Pressford and Maurice began the ascent; the former leading. Only thirty feet of rope separated the two men. They followed the rule, invariable in rock climbing,—one moving, while the other stood firm, hitching the rope over any convenient rock-projection, and thus making himself as secure as possible, to ensure safety in the event of a slip on the part of his companion.

Pressford's task as leader was by far the more severe; and his climbing was a work of art, worth seeing. He had chosen a couloir or gully, never more than a dozen feet in width, rugged, broken, partly lined with snow, partly glazed with ice. It swerved a little to the left, so that one climber would seldom be just over the head of the other.

Doris below, near Maurice, watched steadfastly, fascinated by Pressford's advance, as he crept upward, making no hasty movement, testing each foothold before he trusted to it, taking advantage of every handhold. At times he appeared to cling bodily to the steep rock, writhing and working himself cleverly over one obstacle after another.

Having thus mounted nearly thirty feet, he came to a halt, fixed himself in a good position, and then called on Maurice to follow.

"You'll be sure to let me come! It looks so deliciously easy!" begged Doris.

"Not so easy as you think!"

"But you'll have the rope."

"Yes. My work is child's play, compared with his."

"And mine will be child's play too," she said gaily.

He gave a little parting nod, and went up in steady fashion, till he reached Pressford. Then, in his turn, he settled himself firmly, and Pressford started anew.

The second advance of thirty feet proved stiffer than the first. Pressford managed it, however, with no real difficulty; and Maurice followed, his task as before greatly simplified by the "moral support" of the rope.

Next came Pressford's third effort, the toughest of all. This done, there would be nothing beyond to fear.

Slowly, quietly, with never a hurried movement, he worked his way up the gully, inch by inch ascending, till he had gained a level of nearly one hundred feet above their starting-point, where Doris stood, statue-like, on the snow.

"Is it easy going now?" shouted Maurice.

"Pretty fair," assented the leader. "I haven't had really to extend myself yet. But I think I'll have another ten feet of rope, if you can manage it, before you go down and rope Miss Winton."

"Are you over the worst bit?"

"Nearly. Ten feet more rope will do it. Quite easy after that."

"One moment—" called Maurice. "Can you stand firm? Another ten feet will put me in a splendid position."

A pause; and then—"Yes. All right."

Maurice mounted the few feet without trouble, and wedged himself in where the gully had narrowed sufficiently to imprison a fallen boulder. Each foot had solid support; and his shoulders rested in a hollow between the boulder and the side of the gully. He could hardly have been better placed. When he had made himself secure, Pressford observed—

"It's a bit of a stretch to a perfect hold. Are you quite firm?"

"Yes. But don't risk anything. There's Miss Winton to think of."

"Oh, I can do it!" came in reply. "The rock's good enough."

Then a grim silence, long to the listener, broken only by the occasional patter of a stone loosened by Pressford, which came bounding down the gully.

Pressford was now out of sight of his fellow-climber, but in full view of Doris, who had followed the movements of each in turn, with mingled suspense and delight, counting the moments till she should be allowed to make her own essay.

Suspense, lest they should decide that the ascent was too hard for a beginner. That was all. She had no thought of fear; and nothing lay farther from her imagination than that either of her companions should come to grief. Two experienced climbers—one of them a practised mountaineer who had scaled without a guide some of the most hazardous peaks in Switzerland!—roped together, in a gully which she herself hoped to go up. The idea would have seemed preposterous.

But even a first-class mountaineer is never absolutely ensured against a slip,—still less against the perils of rotten rock.

She saw Pressford creep, worming himself along like a snake, over a slab of slanting rock, on which from where she stood no foothold could be detected. His right hand rose stealthily, inch by inch, till it appeared to be at its furthest stretch.

For two or three seconds the climber rested thus,—silent, immobile, as a black shadow on the rock. Suddenly there was a spasmodic effort. His hand clutched at a hold six inches beyond reach; and in this act the only firm foothold was perforce abandoned. His fingers closed convulsively on the rocky projection; and in another moment he would have drawn himself up to a safe position.

He gripped a shade more firmly. And—like the snapping of a rotten branch, overweighted with winter snow—the rock came away in his clutch.

One second he lay prone against the wall, clinging with every muscle of his sinewy frame; the only clear thought in his brain a wild regret that he had trusted to an untested hold.

Then he came sliding downward, faster and faster; making vain clutches at the rock to stay his fall,—till, from thirty feet above Maurice, he was brought up sharply thirty feet below, by the rope.

And there, to the dismay of Doris, he hung; heavy, motionless, as if without life.