There was some demur to this on the part of the more inexperienced section of the males. The experienced ones said nothing.
“You’d better stay with us, Alma,” said the General, with a shade of anxiety. “Remember there have been several people killed up there.”
“Just why I particularly want to go, uncle. I want to be able to say I have been up a mountain on which several people have been killed.”
“I think Miss Wyatt has a steady enough head, General,” said Wentworth, who was an experienced Alpine climber. “At least, judging from the way in which she stood looking over that precipice down yonder, I should say so. If she will allow me I will take care of her.”
“I’ll be hanged if you will though!” said Phil to himself. And then they started.
The mere climbing part of what followed was not hard. But what was apt to prove trying to the nerves of the uninitiated was when, after feeling their way carefully along the narrow ledge-like path which runs beneath the rocks near the crest of the ridge, they came right out upon the summit of the arête itself. Here, indeed, it was a good deal like walking on the edge of a knife-blade even as Wentworth had defined it, and here it was that two, at any rate, of the party began to feel dubious. On the right was a precipitous fall of rocks, then the steep, slippery, grassy slope—broken here and there by a cliff—which constituted the whole of that side of the mountain; on the left an unbroken drop of seven or eight hundred feet. And on the apex of this rock ridge, in single file, poised, like Mohammed’s coffin, between the heavens and the earth, the aspiring party had to walk or crawl.
“Well, Miss Wyatt, how do you feel now?” said Wentworth, who was leading the way. Alma was immediately behind him, then came Philip Orlebar, then Fordham, Scott and Gedge bringing up the rear. “Not giddy at all, I hope?”
“Not in the very least,” said Alma, brightly. “Quite sure? I can give you a hand if you like.”
“Not for the world. I assure you I’m thoroughly enjoying it. And what a view!”
“Well, look carefully where you’re going,” continued Wentworth. “Leave the view to take care of itself until you get to the top. It won’t run away.”