Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3814/Mr. Punch's Holiday Stories
(Constructed after the best models.)
I.—An Alpine Adventure.
(Concluded.)
[Synopsis of Preceding Instalment:—Ralph Wonderson, the famous athlete, while on a mountaineering expedition in Switzerland, encounters Lady Margaret Tamerton, whom he has not seen since childhood. With her are her brother, Lord Tamerton; her cousin, Sir Ernest Scrivener; and three Swiss guides. They combine to make an ascent of the Wetterhorn under Ralph's leadership. Early in the climb Ralph discovers that Sir Ernest Scrivener is none other than his own mortal foe, Marmaduke Moorsdyke. A perilous traverse of a glacier has to be undertaken. All cross in safety except Sir Ernest, who makes imprudent remark which causes a line of overhanging séraes to collapse upon him and sweep him down the glacier. Ralph dives unhesitatingly to the rescue of his deadliest foe.]
Rather than face a second traverse of the awful glacier the remaining members of the party continued the ascent. With shaken nerves they pressed on to the best of their ability, but it was nearly dark when they at length reached the summit, hoping to find another and easier route to the foot.
But luck was against them. A devastating blizzard enveloped them, and they lay huddled together behind a rock, chilled to the bone by the driving particles of ice and snow.
"There is no escape," said Lord Tamerton mournfully to his sister, Lady Margaret. "We must prepare to meet our deaths like true mountaineers."
"True fiddlesticks!" replied Lady Margaret with spirit. "Ralph will come back to us."
"Do you love him, Madge?" asked her brother.
"Yes," she replied simply.
"Then he will surely come back."
Even as she spoke a tall figure loomed of the blizzard and raised his hat with cold formality.
"Your cousin is safe in the hospital at Interlaken," said Ralph, addressing Lord Tamerton with marked constraint. "He has merely sustained a fractured patella. With your permission we will now descend,"
"What is the matter, Ralph?" cried Lady Margaret pleadingly; but, ignoring her question, he busied himself in tying on the rope.
The descent which followed is still spoken of with bated breath by the Swiss guides, than whom there is no more generous body of men in the world.
Unerringly Ralph led his companions through arêtes, glissades, bergschrunds, rücksacs, gendarmes, vorwaerts, couloirs, aiguilles, never hesitating, never flinching from any obstacle, heedless, it seemed, alike of the raging blizzard and the ever-thickening darkness. At times he was obliged to carry the others one by one along razor edges of hard blue ice. At times he would cling precariously by one hand to a projecting splinter of rock, while with the other he lowered them all bodily into the depths of a crevasse, gripping his ice-axe meanwhile steadfastly between his teeth. Once at least he was compelled to hang downwards by his toes while he hewed steps beneath him in a perpendicular wall of ice. And through it all his face retained its stern impassivity and he addressed no word to his exhausted companions.
At length the most wonderful feat in the history of climbing was finished, and the party, weary but thankful, stood at the foot of the mountain. The three guides fell on their knees before their rescuer, but he ignored them and turned his cold, hard gaze upon Lady Margaret.
"You are now safe," he said icily. "My presence is no longer necessary. Take the third turning on the left, the second on the right and the fifth on the left, and then ask again. Before I leave I ought perhaps to congratulate you upon your approaching marriage to your—er—amiable cousin;" and without waiting for a reply he was gone.
*****
Alone, Ralph Wonderson sat upon a rock and reflected that no food had passed his lips since that hurried breakfast in the Fahrjoch Hut. Wearily he drew out a packet of sandwiches from his pocket.
A moment later he was racing back to his former companions. In his day he had been half-mile champion, but now he knocked a full minute off his previous best time.
He found the others as he had left them. Lady Margaret looked up with a glad cry as he flew round the corner.
"Madge," he cried, waving the piece of newspaper which had been wrapped round his sandwiches,—"Madge, you can't marry him!"
Lord Tamerton leaped forward with a white face. "What do you mean?" he hissed. "You are mad. She must marry him, or the family is ruined."
"She can't marry him," repeated Ralph calmly. "Sir Ernest Scrivener alias Marmaduke Moorsdyke is married already! Read this."
And he thrust the fragment of newspaper into Lord Tamerton's hand.
With a low cry of content Lady Margaret fell into her lover's arms. "Oh, my dear!" she murmured.
And as they stood clasped in a close embrace the clouds parted and far, far above them appeared the beautiful white summit of the Wetterhorn shining dazzlingly in the sunlight.