"Knowing that it would be useless for us to try and descend further than the Glacier Carré that day, and as it was pleasanter on the top than there, we went in for a long halt. Untying the rope—for the top is broad enough to be safe—we examined the central cairn, where the tokens are kept. We found a tin box, containing the names of our predecessors; a bottle, hanging by a string, the property of Mr Coolidge; a tri-coloured flag; and a scented pocket-handkerchief belonging to M. Guillemin, still retaining its former fragrance, which it had not 'wasted on the desert air.' We tore a corner off each, leaving a red-and-yellow rag in exchange; put our names in the tin, and an English penny with a hole bored through it.
"Then, after repairing the rather dilapidated southern cairn, we sat down to smoke and enjoy the view, which the fact of the mountain standing on the outside of the group, the tremendous depth to which the eye plunges on each side, the expansive panorama of the Dauphiné and neighbouring Alps, and the beautiful distant view of the Pennine chain from Mont Blanc to Monte Rosa, combine to make one of the finest in the Alps.
"At four o'clock, after an hour and a half on the top, we started downwards, soon arriving at the spot where it was necessary to leave the arête; however, before doing so, we went along it to where it was cut off, to see if we could let ourselves straight down into the gap, and so avoid the detour by the northern face, but it was impracticable; so, putting the middle of the spare rope round a projecting rock on the arête, we let ourselves down to where we had gone along on the level, pulling the rope down after us; then regaining the gap by the morning's route, we crossed it, and leisurely descended the south-western face to the Glacier Carré, filling our now empty wine tin with water on the way down. We reached the glacier at 6.30. In skirting the base of the Pic du Glacier we found a nice hollow in the snow, which looked a good place to sleep in. Gardiner wanted one of us to stop and build a stone-wall, whilst the others fetched the bag and provisions from the bottom of the glacier. Lawrence was neutral; I was rather against it, having slept on snow before. At last we all went down to the rocky platform where our luggage had been left. We cleared a place for the bag, but it all sloped so much, and the edge of the precipice was so near, that we dared not lie down. We looked for a good rock to tie ourselves to; even that could not be found. Then some one thought we might scrape a hole in the steep snow above us, and get into it. That, of course, was quite out of the question. Nothing therefore remained for us but Gardiner's hollow above—the only level place we had seen above M. Duhamel's cairn large enough for us to lay our bag on. There was no time to be lost; it was getting dark; a sharp frost had already set in: so we at once shouldered our traps and trudged wearily up the glacier once more, wishing now that we had left somebody to build a wall.
"On reaching the hollow we put the ropes, axes, hats, and knapsack on the snow as a sort of carpet, placed the bag on the top, then, pulling off our boots for pillows, and putting on the comfortable woollen helmets given to us by Mrs Hartley, got into the bag to have our supper. Fortunately there was not much wind; but it was rather difficult to open the meat tin. We did as well as we could, however, and after supper tried to smoke; but the cold air got into the bag and made that a failure; so we looked at the scene instead.
"The moon was half full, and shone upon us as we lay, making everything look very beautiful. We could see the snow just in front of us, and then, far away through the frosty air all the mountains on the other side of the Vallon des Etançons, with the silver-grey peak of the Ecrins behind, its icy ridges standing out sharply against the clear sky; and deep down in the dark valley below was the signal fire of our porters. As this could only be seen by sitting bolt upright, we got tired of looking at it, and the last link connecting us with the lower world being broken, we felt our utter loneliness.
"The moon soon going behind a rocky spur of the Pic du Glacier, we lay down and tried to get warm by pulling the string round the neck of the bag as tight as possible and breathing inside; but somehow the outside air got in also. So closing it as well as we could, with only our heads out, we went to sleep, but not for long. The side on which we lay soon got chilled. Now, as the bag was narrow, we all had to face one way on account of our knees; so the one who happened to be the soonest chilled through would give the word, and we all turned together. I suppose we must have changed sides every half-hour through the long night. We got some sleep, however, and felt all right when the first glimmering of dawn came over the mountains on our left. As soon as we could see we had breakfast; but the curried fowl was frozen, and the bread could only be cut with difficulty, as a shivering seized one every minute. We had the greatest trouble in getting our boots on. They were pressed out of shape, and, in spite of having been under our heads, were hard frozen. At last, by burning paper inside, and using them as lantern for our candle, we thawed them enough to get them on, and then spent a quarter of an hour stamping about to thaw ourselves. We rolled the bag up and tied it fast to a projecting rock, hanging the meat tin near as a guide to anyone looking for it.
"At 4.30 we set off, very thankful that we had a fine day before us. We soon went down the glacier, and down and across to the shelf of rock where the real descent of the wall was to begin. A few feet below was a jagged tooth of rock which we could not move; so to it we tied one end of the 100 feet of rope, taking care to protect the rope where it pressed on the sharp edges, with pieces of an old handkerchief; the other end we threw over the edge, and by leaning over we could just see the tail of it on some rocks below the bad part,[9] so we knew it was long enough.
"After a short discussion we arranged to go down one at a time, as there were places where we expected to throw all our weight on the rope. Gardiner was to go first as he was the heaviest; my brother next, carrying all the traps and the three axes, as he had the strongest pair of hands and arms in the party; whilst I as the lightest, was to bring down the rear. So tying the climbing rope round his waist as an extra help, Gardiner started, whilst we paid it out. He soon disappeared, but we knew how he was getting on, and when he was in the worst places, by the 'Lower,' 'A little lower,' 'Hold,' 'Hold hard,' which came up from below, getting fainter as he got lower. Fifty feet of the rope passed through our hands before he stopped going. 'Can you hold there?' we asked. 'No. Hold me while I rest a little, and then give me 10 feet more if you can.' So after a while we got notice to lower, and down he went again until nearly all our rope was gone; then it slackened. He told us he was fast, and that we could pull up the rope.
"Then Lawrence shouldered his burdens, the three axes being tied below him with a short piece of rope. The same thing happened again, only it was more exciting, for every now and then the axes caught and loosened with a jerk, which I felt on the rope I was paying out, although it was tied to him. At first I thought it was a slip, but soon got used to it. Lawrence did not go so far as Gardiner, but stopped to help me at the bottom of the worst piece.
"It was now my turn. Tying the other end of the loose rope round me, I crawled cautiously down to where the tight rope was fixed. The others told me afterwards they did not like it. I certainly did not. The upper part was all right; but lower down the rocks were so steep that if I put much weight on the rope it pulled me off them, and gave a tendency to swing over towards the Glacier Carré, which, as only one hand was left for climbing with, was rather difficult to resist. I remember very well sitting on a projecting rock, with nothing below it but air for at least 100 feet. Leaving this, Lawrence half pulled me towards him with the loose rope. A few steps more and I was beside him, and we descended together to Gardiner, cutting off the fixed rope high up, so as to leave as little as possible, and in a few minutes more we all three reached the small shelf of rocks above the smooth slabs by which we had descended the day before. It was the place where we had spent some time trying to avoid the steep bit we had just descended, and which had taken us nearly two hours.