Slowly they mounted higher and higher, occasionally meeting with, but always overcoming, difficulties, until towards evening they reached the little log cabin on the Grands Mulets, not sorry to find in it a sufficient though humble resting-place for the night.
Here they proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Some firewood had been carried up by the porters, with which a fire was kindled, wet garments were hung up to dry, and hot coffee was prepared, while the sun sank in a gorgeous world of amber and crimson fire.
One by one the stars came out and gradually twinkled into brilliancy, until at last the glorious host of heaven shone in the deepening sky with an intensity of lustre that cannot be described, contrasting strangely with the pallid ghostly aspect of the surrounding snow-fields. These were the only trace of earth that now remained to greet the eyes of our travellers when they looked forth from the door of the little hut. Besides being calm and beautiful, the night was intensely cold. There is this peculiarity, on Alpine mountain tops, that when the sun’s last rays desert them the temperature falls abruptly, there being little or nothing of earth or rock to conserve the heat poured out during the day. The mountaineers, therefore, soon after night closed in, found it necessary to shut the door of their cabin, where they roused up the fire, quaffed their steaming coffee, and smoked their pipes, in joyful anticipation of the coming day.
Chapter Fifteen.
The Grand Ascent Continued and Completed.
Need we say that the younger of our adventurers—for such they may truly be styled—felt a tendency to “spin yarns,” as Captain Wopper expressed it, till a late hour that night, as they sat round the fire at the Grands Mulets?
During this enjoyable period, Lawrence and Lewis made themselves better acquainted with Baptist Le Croix, the chamois-hunter, whose quiet, gentle, and unobtrusive manner was very attractive to them. Many an anecdote did he relate of adventures among the Alpine peaks and passes while pursuing the chamois, or guiding travellers on their way, and it is probable that he might have roamed in spirit among his beloved haunts—eagerly followed in spirit by the young men—if he had not been called to order by the guide, who, remembering the hard work that lay before them on the morrow, suggested repose. The profound silence that soon reigned in the hut was broken only by an occasional long-drawn sigh. Even Captain Wopper was quiet, having been so powerfully influenced by fresh mountain air and exercise as to have forgotten or foregone his ordinary and inveterate snore.
There is something peculiarly disagreeable in being awakened, when one is very tired and sleepy, about two minutes after one has dropped into a profound refreshing slumber; and the annoyance is severely aggravated when it is caused by the wanton act of one of whom we had expected better things.