Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3813/Mr. Punch's Holiday Stories
Inside the Fahrjoch Hut a merry clatter of tin mugs proclaimed that a climbing party was supping. Ralph Wonderson paused for a moment, thoughtfully stroking his crampons, before he threw open the door and entered.
Two stalwart and sunburnt young Englishmen, a beautiful fair-haired English girl, and three hirsute and jovial Swiss guides were feasting on the sardines and dried plums which experience has shown to be the best diet for mountaineers. They looked up cheerily as he entered, and greeted him with the easy camaraderie of the mountains.
Gratefully relieving himself of his rope, ice-axe, Baedeker, goggles, cork-screw, crampons and other impedimenta of the expert Alpinist, Ralph seated himself beside the girl.
"You look tired," she said sympathetically.
"Yes," he replied, picking up a sardine by its tail and dropping it into his mouth with the ease of one long accustomed to mountain huts. "Yes, I've just satisfied a long-cherished ambition by doing the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau in the same day without guides."
There was an instant chorus of admiration. The three guides rose to their feet and gazed at the newcomer in astonishment.
"Ja wohl! Auf wiedersehen!" they said warmly.
There is no body of men in the world so free from petty jealousy as the Swiss guides.
"Is it nothing," said Ralph lightly. "What are your plans for to-morrow? I rather thought of taking things easily myself and doing the Wetterhorn. I wondered———"
"I'm sure we should be delighted to join you," said the girl, "if you could consent to be accompanied by such undistinguished climbers. Let me introduce ourselves. This is my cousin, Sir Ernest Scrivener. This is my brother, Lord Tamerton. I am Margaret Tamerton."
"Lady Margaret Tamerton!" cried Ralph in amazement. "Little Madge! Don't you remember me—Ralph Wonderson, your playmate as a child?"
"Ralph!" exclaimed Lady Margaret. "Oh, of course! And I haven't seen you since you whitewashed all the guinea-pigs and were sent away to school."
*****
Several hours later Lady Margaret stood with Ralph on the terrace outside the hut. Her eyes plunged into the awful abyss at their feet, swept along the moonlit valley thousands and thousands of feet below them, and fastened themselves upon the sinister crags of the Lyskamm and the stupendous dome of Mont Blanc. A lump came into her throat.
"I don't know why," she said softly, "but I have a presentiment of evil. Is the Wetterhorn very dangerous?"
Ralph laughed lightly. "A child could climb it blindfolded in midwinter," he said. "Trust yourself to me, little Madge, to-morrow and—and———"
"For ever!" added Margaret almost inaudibly as they went into the hut together.
Mingled happiness and foreboding strangely disturbed her breast, and she sighed as she trod heavily on the face of one of the guides in climbing to her shelf. She heard his low sleepy murmur of apology as she drew her straw about her. There is no more courteous body of men in the world than the Swiss guides.
Next morning, after a hasty toilet with a handful of snow, the party set off shortly before sunrise. Ralph by general consent assumed the leadership. Taking careful soundings with his ice-axe and using his crampons with almost uncanny certitude, he guided his companions through a moraine and debouched on to a tremendous glacier.
As he turned to survey those behind them he perceived for the first time a scar under the left ear of Sir Ernest Scrivener.
"Teufel!" he exclaimed under his breath. "It is he! Moorsdyke! My mortal enemy!"
But his meditations were interrupted by the stern nature of the work before them. Their route led them along the foot of a line of towering and trembling séracs. The vibration of a whisper might send them crashing down upon the party.
Placing one hand on his lips as a warning for silence, he dexterously cut steps in the ice with the other. Progress was slow and nerve-racking. Every step had to be taken with infinite precaution. Once Lord Tamerton slipped and would have fallen headlong to destruction had not Ralph caught him by the ear and lifted him back into his steps.
But at length the trying passage was almost accomplished. Only Sir Ernest Scrivener remained in peril.
Unconsciously Ralph removed his fingers from his lips. Inexperienced as a climber, Sir Ernest imagined this to be a signal that the danger was now over.
"I say," he began.
It was enough. In an instant the whole line of séracs toppled from their bases and thundered down upon him. Ralph did not hesitate. The man was his most deadly enemy, but—he was Lady Margaret's cousin. Ralph sprang to the rope; it snapped like thread between his fingers.
With a cry of despair Sir Ernest vanished in the roaring avalanche of ice and snow. Throwing a quite reassuring smile to Lady Margaret, Ralph joined his hands above his head an dived unflinchingly after him.
(To be concluded in our next.)