Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/55

Rh together and held a council. "Sémiond, old friend, do you know where we are now?" "Oh yes, perfectly, to a yard and a half." "Well, then, how much are we below this plateau?" He affirmed we were not half-an-hour from the edge of the snow. "Very good; let us proceed." Half-an-hour passed, and then another, but we were still in the same state,—pinnacles, buttresses, and gullies were in profusion, but the plateau was not in sight. So we called him again—for he had been staring about latterly, as if in doubt—and repeated the question. "How far below are we now?" Well, he thought it might be half-an-hour more. "But you said that just now; are you sure we are going right?" "Yes, he believed we were." Believed! that would not do. "Are you sure we are going right for the Pic des Arcines?" "Pic des Arcines!" he ejaculated in astonishment, as if he had heard the words for the first time. "Pic des Arcines; no! but for the pyramid, the celebrated pyramid he had helped the great Capitaine Durand," etc.

Here was a fix;—we had been talking about it to him for a whole day, and now he confessed he knew nothing about it. I turned to Reynaud, who seemed thunderstruck. "What did he suggest?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Well," we said, after explaining our minds pretty freely to Sémiond, "the sooner we turn back the better, for we have no wish to see your pyramid."

We halted for an hour, and then commenced the descent. It took us nearly seven hours to come down to our rock; but I paid no heed to the distance, and do not remember anything about it. When we got down we made a discovery which affected us as much as the footprint in the sand did Robinson Crusoe: a blue silk veil lay by our fireside. There was but one solution,—Macdonald had arrived; but where was he? We soon packed our baggage, and tramped in the dusk, through the stony desert, to Alefred, where we arrived about half-past nine. "Where is the Englishman?" was the first question. He was gone to sleep at La Ville.

We passed that night in a hay-loft, and in the morning, after settling with Sémiond, we posted down to catch Macdonald. We