Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/214

208 that it was not the way we had come up. Slingsby then unroped and demonstrated that there was no possibility of going farther in that direction.

We next crossed a little crevasse to our right, but soon scrambled back again appalled by the great towering séracs, séracs that we were all prepared to swear had never been passed in the morning. Slingsby, however, still unroped, again prospected amongst them, and this time shouted to us to follow. Promptly the great looming séracs were seen to be mainly fictions of the darkness, and were reduced to mere hummocks of ice, and the yawning chasms to water channels or streaks of sand-covered glacier!

Thanks to our screw spikes we descended the ice tongue with tolerable ease, reached the level glacier and tumbled helter-skelter back to the gîte, regaining our camp at 11.45 p.m.

Here Hastings and I, realising the discomfort of packing by lantern light, and the advantage of getting some one else to carry our luggage, made various deceitful remarks about the delights of sleeping bags. So entrancing was the picture we drew that Collie declared his intention of not going further, and Slingsby was brought to the same state of mind by my generously offering him the loan of my sleeping bag for use as a mattress. Having in this ingenious way got rid of the necessity of carrying my bag, I felt equal to the descent to the