He rolled over the stone. It was a large one, and spoke volumes for his excellent condition that he was able to move it at all. There was a crash and a shatter like the breaking of glass, as it crushed through the fringe of icicles—then a long pause, followed by a far-away and hollow clang.
“What an awful depth,” said Alma, with a shudder, instinctively drawing back. “Wait!” warned Philip. “There it goes again!” Another clang—this time very faint, together with a ghostly rumbling roar as the prisoned echo strove to break free—told that the crevasse was of appalling depth, even if its bottom was yet reached. The listeners looked at each other.
“Not much chance once over this little bit of crushed snow,” said Philip, breaking away the overhanging edge with the end of his ice-axe.
“Horrible!” rejoined Alma, with a shudder. “Now I think we had better go back to the others, for it seems to me we are getting more and more in among the crevasses, and it must be a trifle dangerous.”
It was even as she said. The whole surface of the glacier was seamed and criss-crossed with yawning rifts—many of them like the one before them—of unknown depth. To a fairly experienced man, and one of average gumption withal, the situation would have held no obstacle. To such the lay of the glacier would have been understood, and he could have threaded his way to safer ground without difficulty. But Philip was not experienced in Alpine features, and there was just a little too much of the bull-at-a-gate about his disposition for him to supplement this lack by ordinary prudence. So they got deeper and deeper into the labyrinth—and moreover the sun was already shut out behind the towering mountain walls rearing up immediately overhead.
Under these circumstances neither of the pair was sorry to hear a shout, and to make out a figure approaching at some distance over the ice.
“It’s Fordham,” cried Phil. “He’ll show us the right line. He’s about as good as a professional guide.”
Not the least lovable trait in Philip Orlebar’s character was his perfect readiness to yield to another’s superior knowledge, and this he was wont to do, not grudgingly or as one making a concession, but fully, frankly, and as a matter of course. It did not, for instance, occur to him that his fortnight of knocking about among the mountains and glaciers in the neighbourhood of Zinal—said knocking about being mostly in picnic fashion, as in the present case—had rendered his experience a trifle superior to that of Fordham, who had done a good deal of serious Alpine climbing in times past; and in stating this we are not dealing with so obvious a truism as the uninitiated would assume. For to many of his age and temperament that very thing would have occurred, and does occur, not infrequently to their own ultimate discomfiture if not disaster. We speak of that which we know.
Philip therefore hailed the advent of his friend with genuine pleasure, not to say relief. But the other in no wise reciprocated that warming sentiment. He didn’t see any fun in coming about two miles out of his way—and towards the end of the day, too—in order to benefit two people whom he had every reason to suppose would be wishing him in Halifax all the time.
“Tired of life already, Miss Wyatt?” he said sourly, as he came up, pointing to a great black crevasse the two were gingerly skirting. “Or do you want to anticipate death, and defeating his ravages and decay, ensure remaining beautiful for ever, although within the depths of a glacier?”