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The Crystal Hunters: A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 7. Melchior Grows Suspicious |
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_ CHAPTER SEVEN. MELCHIOR GROWS SUSPICIOUS "Hallo! another donkey coming," cried Saxe, and he looked up, and then at Melchior, who had thrust his pipe into his wallet and was peering up the sides of the valley. "I don't see one," he said; "but there must be something to take the thing's attention." The mule whinnied again. "It is not another mule or donkey," said Melchior, peering upward. "They would have answered his challenge. It must be a man." He began to climb up to get to a position where he could look up and down the gorge; while Dale, being more interested in the contents of his pan, went on till he had washed enough, and began now to search for specks or tiny scales of gold. "Must have been some one Gros knew," said the guide to himself, as he still looked about sharply. "Anything the matter, Melchior?" cried Saxe. "No, sir, no. I was only trying to make out who was coming up this way." "Not a speck," said Dale, rinsing his pan in the pure water. "Will the herr try again?" "No, not here," replied Dale. "Let's get on: I'm wasting time." "No," said Melchior; "the herr is making his researches into the wonders of Nature. It cannot be waste of time." "Well, no, I suppose not, my man. It is all learning. But what was the mule whinnying about!" "I don't know," replied the guide in a peculiar tone. "It seemed to me that some one he knew was following us." "What for?" said Dale. "Ah! that I don't know, sir. From curiosity, perhaps." "But there is no one who could come but old Andregg; and he would not, surely?" "No, sir; he is too simple and honest to follow us, unless it were to make sure that we were behaving well to his mule. It must have been that. The animal heard or smelt him, and challenged." "But you would have seen him, Melchior." "I might, sir, but perhaps not. There are plenty of places where a man might hide who did not wish to be seen." "I say, young man," said Dale, "have you a great love for the mysterious?" "I do not understand you, herr." "I mean, are you disposed to fancy things, and imagine troubles where there are none?" "No, herr; I think I am rather dull," said the guide modestly. "Why do you ask?" "Because that mule made a noise, and you instantly imagined that we were being followed and watched." "Oh, that! Yes, herr. Our people are curious. Years ago we used to go on quietly tending our cows and goats in the valleys, and driving them up to the huts on the mountains when the snow melted. There were the great stocks and horns and spitzes towering up, covered with eternal snow, and we gazed at them with awe. Then you Englishmen came, and wanted to go up and up where the foot of man never before stepped; and even our most daring chamois hunters watched you all with wonder." "Yes, I suppose so," said Dale, smiling, as he looked in the guide's frank face. "You wanted guides to the mountains, and we showed you the way, while you taught us that we could climb too, and could be as cool and daring. We did not know it before, and we had to get over our suspicions. For we said, 'these strangers must want to find something in the mountains-- something that will pay them for the risk they run in climbing up to the places where the demons of the storm dwell, and who wait to hurl down stones and dart lightning at the daring people who would venture up into their homes.'" "And very dangerous those bad spirits are--eh, Melchior!" said Dale, smiling. "Terribly, herr," said the guide. "And you laugh. I don't wonder. But there are plenty of our simple, uneducated people in the villages who believe all that still. I heard it all as a child, and it took a great deal of quiet thinking, as I grew up, before I could shake off all those follies, and see that there was nothing to fear high up, but the ice and wind and snow, with the dangers of the climbing. Why, fifty years ago, if a man climbed and fell, the people thought he had been thrown down by evil spirits. Many think so now in the out-of-the-way valleys." "Then you are not superstitious, Melchior?" "I hope not, herr," said the guide reverently; "but there are plenty of my people who are, and suspicious as well. I am only an ignorant man, but I believe in wisdom; and I have lived to see that you Englishmen find pleasure in reading the books of the great God, written with His finger on the mountains and in the valleys; to know how you collect the lowliest flowers, and can show us the wonders of their shape and how they grow. Then I know, too, how you find wonders in the great rocks, and can show me how they are made of different stone, which is always being ground down to come into the valleys to make them rich. I know all this, herr; and so I do not wonder and doubt when you ask me to show you some of the wildest places in the mountains, where you may find crystals and see glaciers and caves scarcely any of us have ventured to search. But if I told some of our people that you spend your money and your time in seeking and examining all this, they would only laugh and call me a fool. They would say, 'we know better. He has blinded you. He is seeking for gold and diamonds.' And I could not make them believe it is all in the pursuit of--what do you call that!" "Science?" "Yes, science; that is the word. And in their ignorance they will follow and watch us, if we do not take care to avoid them." "You think, then, that some one has been following us?" "Undoubtedly, sir; and if it is so, we shall have trouble." "Pooh! They will, you mean. But I'm not going to worry myself about that. There--let's get on." Melchior gave a quick glance backward, and Saxe followed his example, his eyes catching directly a glimpse as he thought, of a human face high up, and peering down at them from among some stones which had fallen upon a ledge. But the glimpse was only instantaneous, and as he looked he felt that he could not be sure, and that it might be one of the blocks of lichened stones that he had taken for a face. They went on slowly and more slowly, for the path grew so difficult that it was easy to imagine that no one had ever been along there before, and Saxe said so. "Oh yes," said Melchior; "I have often been along here. It has been my business these many years to go everywhere and find strange wild places in the mountains. The men, too, who hunt the chamois and the bear--" "Eh? what?" cried Saxe, plucking up his ears. "Bears! There are no bears here." "Oh yes," said the guide, smiling. "Not many; but there are bears in the mountains. I have seen them several times, and the ibex too, more to the south, on the Italian slope." "Shall we see them?" "You may, herr. Perhaps we shall come across a chamois or two to-day, far up yonder in the distance." "Let's get on, then," said Saxe eagerly. "But hallo! how are we to get the mule up that pile of rocks?" "That!" said the guide quietly; "he will climb that better than we shall." He was right, for the sure-footed creature breasted the obstacle of a hundred feet of piled-up blocks very coolly, picking his way patiently, and with a certainty that was surprising. "Why, the mule is as active as a goat!" cried Dale. "Well, not quite, herr," said Melchior. "But, as I said, you will find that he will go anywhere that we do, except upon the ice. There he loses his footing at once, and the labour is too great to cut steps for an animal like that." The great pile of loose blocks was surmounted, and at the top Saxe stood and saw that it was evidently the remains of a slip from the mountain up to their right, which had fallen perhaps hundreds of years before, and blocked up the narrow gorge, forming a long, deep, winding lake in the mountain solitude. "Fish? Oh yes--plenty," said the guide, "and easily caught; but they are very small. There is not food enough for them to grow big and heavy, as they do in the large lakes." "Well," said Dale, after a few minutes' study of their surroundings, "this is wild and grand indeed. How far does the lake run up there? Of course it winds round more at the other end!" "Yes, herr, for miles; and gets narrower, till it is like a river." "Grand indeed; but it is like a vast stone wall all round, and as far as we can see. Must we go back again?" "Yes," said Saxe promptly; "there's no means of getting along any farther." The guide smiled, went a little to the left, and plunged at once into a long crack between two masses of rock, so narrow that as the mule followed without hesitation, the sides of the basket almost touched the rock. "We can't say our guide is of no use, Saxe," cried Dale, laughing. "Come along. Well, do you like this rough climbing, or would you rather get back to the paths of the beaten track." "I love it," cried Saxe excitedly. "It's all so new and strange. Why didn't we come here before?" "You should say, why do not the tourists come into these wild places instead of going year after year in the same ruts, where they can have big hotels and people to wait upon them? Look, there's a view!" he continued, pointing along a narrow gorge between the mountains at a distant peak which stood up like the top of a sugar-loaf, only more white. "I was looking at that view," said Saxe, pointing downward at the hind quarters of the mule, which was the only part visible, the descent was so steep, to where they came upon a sheltered grove of pines, whose sombre green stood out in bright contrast to the dull grey rocks. Then onward slowly for hours--at times in the valley, where their feet crushed the beautiful tufts of ferns; then the hoofs of the mule were clattering over rounded masses of stone, ground and polished, over which the patient beast slipped and slid, but never went down. Now and then there was a glimpse of a peak here or of another turning or rift there; but for the most part they were completely shut in down between walls of rock, which echoed their voices, bursting forth into quite an answering chorus when Melchior gave forth a loud, melodious jodel. "But doesn't any one live here?" said Saxe at last. "No, herr!" "No farmers or cottage people? Are there no villages?" "No, herr. How could man live up here in these solitudes? It is bright and beautiful now, with moss and dwarf firs and ferns; but food would not grow here. Then there is no grass for the cattle; and in the winter it is all deep in snow, and the winds tear down these valleys, so that it is only in sheltered places that the pines can stand. Am I leading the herrs right? Is this the kind of scenery they wish to see?" "Capital!" cried Saxe. "Yes," said Dale quietly, as his eyes wandered up the wall-like sides of the gorge they were in; "but there ought to be rifts and caverns up in these narrow valleys where I could find what I seek." "After awhile, herr, after awhile. When we get to the end of this thal we shall come upon a larger lake. We shall go along one shore of that to where it empties itself. There is much water in it, for three glaciers run down toward it. At the other end, beyond the schlucht, we shall be in the greater valley, between the mountains I pointed to this morning; and there you will find steeper places than this, wilder and stranger, where we can camp for to-night, and to-morrow you can choose." "Very good: I leave it to you; but if we pass anything you think would be interesting, stop." They had zigzagged about, and climbed up and up as well as descended, so that Saxe had quite lost count of the direction. "Which way are we going now?" he said at last. "Nearly due south." "Then that's toward Italy?" "Yes. As the crow flies we can't be many miles from the border." "How rum!" said Saxe to himself. Then, aloud, "Over more mountains, I suppose?" "Over those and many others beyond them," replied Dale; and then, as they followed each other in single file, Melchior leading and the mule close at his heels like a dog, weariness and the heat of the narrow sun-bathed gorge put an end to conversation, till Saxe noticed that the waters foaming along far down in the bottom were running in the same direction as they were going, whereas earlier in the day they met them. "We are in another valley, going toward a different lake," said Dale, in answer to a remark; "and look: that must be it. No, no--that way to the left." Saxe looked, and saw a gleam of silver between two nearly perpendicular walls; and half an hour afterwards they were traversing a narrow ledge running some few feet above the dark blue waters of a lake shut in apparently on all sides by similar walls of rock, which it would have been impossible to scale. "The herr will be careful along here," said Melchior, pausing for a minute at a slightly wider part of the shelf to let the mule pass him. "Shall we have the rope!" "What do you say, Saxe?" said Dale. "If it is no narrower than this, I think we can keep our heads." "Oh, I can manage," said Saxe. "Besides, if one fell, it is only into the water. Is it deep, Melchior?" "Hundreds of feet, I think," said the guide; "and it would be bad to fall in. I could soon throw you the rope, but the waters are icily cold, and might make you too helpless to swim. Still, it is better to grow accustomed to walking places like this without the rope." "Oh yes," said Saxe, coolly enough; "I don't feel frightened." "I hope you would speak out frankly if you were nervous," said Dale: "it might save an accident. False shame would be folly here." "Oh, I'll speak," said Saxe, as his eyes wandered over the blue water that lay like a mirror reflecting the mountains round. "What a place it looks for fish! There are plenty here, eh, Melchior?" "I have seen small ones leap out--that is all." "But what's the matter with the mule? He can't get any farther." "Oh yes; there is a good path to where the river runs out. He does not like to go on by himself. I must get by him again, and lead." It was easier said than done, for the path was so narrow that Melchior had to press the mule close to the perpendicular rock, and hold on by the pack-saddle and then by the animal's neck, to get by. Once he did slip, his foot gliding over the edge; but by throwing himself forward he saved himself, clung to the path for a few minutes as he hung over it, his chest and arms resting thereon till he could get one knee up. The rest was easy, and he rose once more to his feet. "Hah!" ejaculated Saxe, "I thought you were gone, and we had no rope to throw to you." "It was rather awkward, herr," said the guide coolly. "It is bad, too, to get wet when one is hot with walking." _ |
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