“I can’t see you.”
“No? Come along, then, another yard or two: you are not quite off the ledge. That’s it. Safe!”
“And thank goodness!” said Dale, with a sigh of relief, a few minutes later. “That was worse than ever. Saxe, my lad, you are having a month’s mountaineering crowded into one day.”
“Yes, herr,” said Melchior; “he is having a very great lesson, and he’ll feel a different person when he lies down to sleep.”
“He will if we have anywhere to sleep to-night. It seems to me as if we must sit under a block of stone and wait until this mist is gone.”
“Oh no, herr,” said the guide; “we will keep to the rope, and you two will save me if I get into a bad place. I seem to know this mountain pretty well now; and, if you recollect, there was nothing very bad. I think we’ll go on, if you please, and try and reach the camp.”
“You asked me to trust you,” said Dale. “I will. Go on.”
“Forward, then; and if I do not hit the snow col I shall find the valley, and we can journey back.”
For the first time Saxe began to feel how utterly exhausted he had grown. Till now the excitement and heat of the journey had monopolised all his thoughts; but, as they stumbled on down slope after slope strewn with débris, or over patches of deep snow, his legs dragged heavily, and he struck himself awkwardly against blocks of granite that he might have avoided.
The work was comparatively simple, though. It was downward, and that must be right unless Melchior led them to the edge of some terrible precipice right or left of the track they had taken in the morning.