Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/352

Rh east, parallel to the main ridge, a gentle descent was begun. As we paced through the mist the angle steadily increased, and crevasses and gigantic pinnacles of ice began to loom through the fog. Zurfluh, forgetting the air of sorrow that befits the Swiss guide in a foreign land, began to rejoice in the struggle. An unknown ice fall shrouded in impenetrable cloud is, indeed, enough to rouse the sporting instinct in any mountaineer.

At one point we were nearly stopped. The sérac, on which we stood, overhung a rock cliff, the bottom of which was lost in the fog. Direct descent was impossible, but the side of the sérac evidently gave access to the rock slope slightly to our right. Zurfluh, however, averred that he had felt the sérac give a premonitory movement, and that the slightest jar, such as that caused by step-cutting, would inevitably send the whole structure in one thundering avalanche to the mist-filled depths below. Zurfluh and the Tartar accordingly retreated to solid footing, whilst, tied to the end of our rope, I managed to cut the steps and scramble on to a smaller sérac, more securely anchored to the slope. The men followed, and we climbed down the rocks to the glacier, urged to our best speed by the knowledge that a sérac might take it into its head to come trundling after us.

The fog, which had been getting thinner, now began to break into detached masses, and every