Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/102

Rh "If old Burgener can't get up that slope, it is a pity."

Putting on the rope once more, the great man of the party advanced to the assault. With great care he got his hands well fixed in a crevice, but above and on either side, as far as he could reach, everything he touched came away, covering me with showers of crumbling shale. I jammed my head against the cliff, but this gave scanty shelter from the sharp-edged, slate-like chips that came flying by, and by the time the order "Come on" was sounded, my fingers and arms were a good deal the worse for wear, and my eyes were full of anything and everything small enough to get into them. But the worst was now to come; how was I to get up without at least slaying those behind me, or, which seemed much more likely, upsetting the whole unstable veneer that covered the face of the cliff? Whenever one stone gave way, those above it came sweeping down in a perfect avalanche, so exciting Burgener's fears that he kept shrieking, "You kill your man if you not more careful are." My own impression was that I should not merely "kill my man,"but that the whole party and most of the mountain would be hurled to the glacier beneath. It was, therefore, with a most joyful heart that I at length found myself seated securely on a rock overlooking the snow slope on the left of the arête, and could watch in comfort the miseries of my companions below.