Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/267

Rh Presently the slope diminished and we glided to a standstill. Ahead of us a faint blur indicated the rocks near the bivouac. In ten minutes we were stumbling over them seeking the flat place on which the tent is always pitched. While the men lit lanterns and fixed up the tent I threw myself down on the stones and fell asleep. Presently a gentle voice suggested I would be much more comfortable in the tent; so sleepily I betook myself there and took off boots and putties, while the bubbling "cooker" gave forth grateful warmth and an appetizing hint of good things to come. It was ten o'clock, and we had been twenty hours on the tramp, with nothing to eat but fruit, biscuits, and tea. It was a happy, hungry, but distinctly sleepy party that rapidly disposed of a good meal and crept into their sleeping-bags at eleven o'clock. I awoke before daylight feeling uncomfortable and at first unable to say why. Very soon, however, I located the sensation to my lips, so lit a match and had a look at them; they were a woeful spectacle, swollen, with the skin stretched tight, and protruding like a negro's. The rest of my face was immaculate, not a patch of sunburn anywhere, thanks to a thick coat of grease-paint I had put on before leaving the Hooker bivouac. Whether I licked the paint off my lips, or never put any on, I can't remember; at any rate, the sun's rays had concentrated on this one unprotected spot with most disastrous results, and I did not appreciate the idea of arriving at the Hermitage in this condition, for I knew we were in for a triumphal reception when we returned.

By eight o'clock we had breakfast, every one being rested and too excited with our victory to stay still. I found it impossible to do more than drink some lukewarm tea out of a spoon, my lips were so swollen and sensitive. I tied a handkerchief well anointed with face cream over them, and we began the descent to the Ball hut. On arriving there we found that three horses had