“Sit down there, qué. Monsieur Baltet.”
“Vive Monsieur Baltet!.. Ha! ha! fen dé brut.”
Surrounded, captured by all these men whom he had never seen before in his life, père Baltet smiled with a tranquil air. A robust Savoyard, tall and broad, with a round back and slow walk, a heavy face, close-shaven, enlivened by two shrewd eyes, that were still young, contrasting oddly with his baldness, caused by chills at dawn upon the mountain.
“These gentlemen wish to ascend Mont Blanc?” he said, gauging the Tarasconese Alpinists with a glance both humble and sarcastic. Tartarin was about to reply, but Bompard forestalled him:— “Isn’t the season too far advanced?” “Why, no,” replied the former guide. “Here’s a Swedish gentleman who goes up to-morrow, and I am expecting at the end of this week two American gentlemen to make the ascent; and one of them is blind.”
“I know. I met them on the Guggi.” “Ah! monsieur has been upon the Guggi?” “Yes, a week ago, in doing the Jungfrau.” Here a quiver among the evangelical conventiclers; all pens stopped, and heads were raised in the direction of Tartarin, who, to the eyes of these English maidens, resolute climbers, expert in all sports, acquired considerable authority. He had gone up the Jungfrau!
“A fine thing!” said père Baltet, considering the P. C. A. with some astonishment; while Pascalon, intimidated by the ladies and blushing and stuttering, murmured softly:—
“Ma-a-aster, tell them the... the... thing... crevasse.”
The president smiled. “Child!..” he said: but, all the same, he began the tale of his fall; first with a careless, indifferent air, and then with startled motions, jigglings at the end of the rope over the abyss, hands outstretched and appealing. The young ladies quivered, and devoured him with those cold English eyes, those eyes that open round.
In the silence that followed, rose the voice of Bompard:—
“On Chimborazo we never roped one another to cross crevasses.”