Nothing but the heavy breathing of our already sound—asleep comrades broke the solemn stillness of the night. It was a silence to be felt. Nothing! Hark! what is that dull booming sound above us? Is that nothing? There it is again, plainer: on it comes, nearer, clearer: ’tis a crag escaped from the heights above. What a fearful crash! We jump to our feet. Down it comes with awful fury: what power can withstand its violence? Dancing leaping, flying, dashing against others, roaring as it descends. Ah, it has passed! No: there it is again, and we hold our breath as, with resistless force and explosions like artillery, it darts past, with an avalanche of shattered fragments trailing in its rear. ’Tis gone, and we breathe more freely as we hear the finale on the glacier below.
We retired at last, but I was too excited to sleep. At a quarter-past four every man once more shouldered his pack and started. This time we agreed to keep more to the right, to see if it were not possible to get to the plateau without losing any time by crossing the glacier. To describe our route would be to repeat what has been said before. We mounted steadily for an hour and a half, sometimes walking, but more frequently climbing, and then found, after all, that it was necessary to cross the glacier. The part on which we struck came down a very steep slope, and was much crevassed. The word crevassed hardly expresses its appearance: it was a mass of formidable séracs. We found, however, more difficulty in getting on than across it, but, thanks to the rope, it was passed somehow: then the interminable buttresses began again. Hour after hour we proceeded upward, frequently at fault and obliged to descend. The ridge behind us had sunk long ago, and we looked over it and all others till our eyes rested on the majestic Viso. Hour after hour passed, and monotony was the order of the day: when twelve o’clock came we lunched, and contemplated the scene with satisfaction: all the summits in sight, with the single exception of the Viso, had given in, and we looked over an immense expanse—a perfect sea of peaks and snow-fields. Still the pinnacles rose above us, and opinions were freely uttered that we should see no summit of Pelvoux that day. Old Sémiond had become a perfect bore to all: whenever one rested for a moment to look about, he would say, with a complacent chuckle, “Don’t be afraid—follow me.” We came at last to a very bad piece, rotten and steep, and no hold. Here Reynaud and Macdonald confessed to being tired, and talked of going to sleep. A way was discovered out of the difficulty: then some one called out, “Look at the Viso!” and we saw that we almost looked over it. We worked away with redoubled energy, and at length caught sight of the head of the glacier as it streamed out of the plateau. This gave us fresh hopes: we were not deceived, and with a simultaneous shout we greeted the appearance of our long wished-for snows. A large crevasse separated us from them, but a bridge was found: we tied ourselves in line and moved safely over it. Directly we got across there arose before us a fine snow-capped peak. Old Sémiond cried, “The pyramid! I see the pyramid!” “Where, Sémiond, where?” “There, on the top of that peak.”
MONT PELVOUX
There, sure enough, was the cairn he had helped to erect more than thirty years before. But where was the Pic des Arcines which we were to see? It was nowhere visible, but only a great expanse of snow, bordered by three lower peaks. Somewhat sadly we moved toward the pyramid, sighing that there was no other to conquer, but hardly had we gone two hundred paces before there rose a superb white cone on the left, which had been hidden before by a slope of snow. We shouted, “The Pic des Arcines!” and inquired of Sémiond if he knew whether that peak had been ascended. As for him, he knew nothing except that the peak before us was called the Pyramid, from the cairn he had, etc., etc., and that it had been ascended since. “All right, then: face about;” and we immediately turned at right angles for the cone, the porter making faint struggles for his beloved pyramid. Our progress was stopped in the sixth of a mile by the edge of the ridge connecting the two peaks, and we perceived that it curled over in a lovely volute. We involuntarily retreated. Sémiond, who was last in the line, took the opportunity to untie himself, and refused to come on, said we were running dangerous risks, and talked vaguely of crevasses. We tied him up again and proceeded. The snow was very soft: we were always knee-deep, and sometimes floundered in up to the waist, but a simultaneous jerk before and behind always released one. By this time we had arrived at the foot of the final peak. The left-hand ridge seemed easier than that upon which we stood, so we curved round to get to it. Some rocks peeped out one hundred and fifty feet below the summit, and up these we crawled, leaving our porter behind, as he said he was afraid. I could not resist the temptation, as we went off, to turn round and beckon him onward, saying, “Don’t be afraid—follow me,” but he did not answer to the appeal, and never went to the top. The rocks led to a short ridge of ice—our plateau on one side, and a nearly vertical precipice on the other. Macdonald cut up it, and at a quarter to two we stood shaking hands on the loftiest summit of the conquered Pelvoux!
MONT PELVOUX AND THE ALÉFROIDE, FROM NEAR MONT DAUPHIN, IN THE VALLEY OF THE DURANCE.
The day still continued everything that could be desired, and far and near countless peaks burst into sight, without a cloud to hide them. The mighty Mont Blanc, full seventy miles away, first caught our eyes, and then, still farther off, the Monte Rosa group; while, rolling away to the east, one unknown range after another succeeded in unveiled splendor, fainter and fainter in tone, but still perfectly defined, till at last the eye was unable to distinguish sky from mountain, and they died away in the far-off horizon. Monte Viso rose up grandly, but it was less than forty miles away, and we looked over it to a hazy mass we knew must be the plains of Piedmont. Southward, a blue mist seemed to indicate the existence of the distant Mediterranean: to the west we looked over to the mountains of Auvergne. Such was the panorama, a view extending in nearly every direction for more than a hundred miles. It was with some difficulty we wrenched our eyes from the more distant objects to contemplate the nearer ones. Mont Dauphin was very conspicuous, but La Bessée was not readily perceived. Besides these, not a human habitation could be seen: all was rock, snow or ice; and large as we knew were the snow-fields of Dauphine, we were surprised to find that they very far surpassed our most ardent imagination. Nearly in a line between us and the Viso, immediately to the south of Chateau Queyras, was a splendid group of mountains of great height. More to the south an unknown peak seemed still higher, while close to us we were astonished to discover that there was a mountain which appeared even higher than that on which we stood. At least this was my opinion: Macdonald thought it not so high, and Reynaud insisted that its height was much about the same as our own.