James walked with him a little way. "What's all this mystery?" he asked.
"I wonder if you know what you are doing," Urquhart said; "I wonder if you know what this means. Do you know, for instance, that I don't care a damn whether I break my neck or not, and on the whole would rather that you did than didn't? You ought to know it. But I'm asking you."
James kept his eyeglass to his eye. "I think you are talking nonsense," he said, "but I don't suppose you intend it for nonsense. You inspire me to say, taking you on your face value, that I shall try the first cornice. If it's a forty-foot drop, we ought to have rope enough."
Urquhart peered at him. "You mean what you say?"
"Certainly I do." Urquhart turned on his heel.
"All right," he said, and went over to the other two.
"Macartney and I are going down," he said to Lingen. "I don't at all blame you for going back, but I'll trouble you to see that this man does the needful to-morrow. The needful is to come out here as early as he can get over the ground, to see if we want him. He had better fire a gun, or shout. If we are alive we shall answer him. If we don't answer, he had better see about it. I don't want to scare you, but this is not a joke, and I can't afford to be misunderstood. Now I'm going to tell him all that in his own lingo."
Lingen took it very badly; but said nothing. Urquhart spoke vehemently to the guide, who raised his staff and appeared to be testifying to Heaven. He handed over the rope, the shovel, and the kit with an air of Pilate washing his hands.
"Now," Urquhart said to James, "we'll rope, and see if we can cut some steps through this thing. I've seen that done." James, dropping his eyeglass, said that he was in his hands. Everybody was quiet, but they were all in a hurry.
Lingen came up to say good-bye. He was very much distressed, nearly crying. The guide, on the other hand, was chafing to be off. "If that chap calls himself a guide," said Urquhart, "he ought to be shot." The guide thereupon threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. Lingen said that he couldn't possibly go until he had seen them down. The guide, who was sullen and nervous, remained to help them. Even that seemed to be against his convictions.