Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/109

88 No wonder, then, that black horror seized us. Return was not to be thought of, and advance seemed unpossible. There we four stood, absolutely powerless, our teeth chattering with the bitter cold, and the damp, cruel mist ever driving across, threatening to add obscurity to our other bewilderment.

Happily, after a few minutes we began to recover from the mental shock caused by this most dramatic break in the ridge, and proceeded to reduce its tremendous appearance to the dull and narrow limits of actual fact. So soon as we had realised that we were on a cornice overhanging the precipice, it became obvious that we must climb down the cornice to the real ridge, and from that point seek to attack the difficulties in front. This descent was not very easy, the slabby rocks shelving steeply towards the Kien glacier, and all the interstices and cracks being filled with ice. However, some slight hold was obtainable on the extreme edge, and after the ice had been dug from various irregularities and fractures my husband arrived at a point immediately above a deep cleft, which cut off the corniced section of the ridge from its uncorniced continuation. Beyond this point the comfortable assurance of the rope was gone. Any one dependent on it would necessarily swing free in mid-air, and it may well be doubted whether "all the king's horses and all the king's men"