The Crystal Hunters Part 30

But Saxe's nature was too impatient for this, and before he had been seated there many minutes he began to strain his neck in looking up to right and left.

Melchior leaned over to him and shouted in his ear, he having divined the boy's thoughts from his actions.

"No, herr, no--not here. There is one place where, with a hammer and plenty of iron spikes to drive in the cracks of the rock, we might perhaps get to the top; but it would be impossible without. We should want ten times as much rope too."

"Is the water going down now?" shouted back Saxe, after a pause.

Melchior looked down and shook his head.

"Will it come with a sudden rush, like a river?"

"Oh no. It may rise very quickly, but not all at once. Of course it all comes from the lake, and the waters of the lake swell from hundreds of streams and falls. No, herr, it will not come down with a rush."

"But it is rising very fast," said Dale, who had caught part of their conversation. "Are we on the highest part that we can reach!"

"Yes, herr; and I am sorry I have brought you in. I try to be a perfect guide, but there is no such thing. I ought to have been prepared for another rise after the storm we had. Forgive me."

"You think, then, that the water will come up above where we are sitting."

The guide nodded, and pointed to a dimly-seen mark upon the wall, quite level with their heads.

"Then we must find some other ledge upon which we can stand," cried Dale, rising to his feet.

Melchior shook his head. "There is none," he said.

"You have not looked."

"Herr, I searched the wall with my eyes as we went and returned. A guide studies the places he pa.s.ses, and learns them by heart, so that they may be useful at some time, should he want them. Look above you: the wall hangs over all the way. Nothing but a fly could stand anywhere along here."

It was undeniable, as Dale could see; and he leaned back against the rock and folded his arms, gazing down sternly at the rising water, till the guide spoke again, as he finished his pipe, knocked out the ashes, and replaced it in his breast.

"It would be wise to take off the rope," he said quietly.

"Why?" cried Saxe excitedly.

"Because, if we are swept down with the stream, it would be in our way-- perhaps catch in some rock below, or tangle round our legs and arms."

"You feel, then," cried Dale, "that there is no hope of the waters going down, and that we shall soon have a chance to get through?"

Saxe, whose brain had been full of horrors suggested by the guide's last words--words which had called up visions of unfortunate people vainly struggling to reach the surface beyond the reach of the strangling water, but held down by that terrible rope--now sat listening eagerly for Melchior's next utterance, as the man began deliberately unfastening the rope.

"I can say nothing for certain, herr," he replied. "We are in the hands of the great G.o.d, whose children we are, and we must be patient and wait. I hope we shall get out safely,--perhaps I think we shall--but it is our duty to be ready. The young herr swims, I know, and so do you, herr; but if we have to make for the lower end of the schlucht, try and remember this: Don't struggle to get to the surface, for it is waste of strength. You cannot swim properly in this water, for all torrents are full of bubbles of air, and these do not bear one up like still water.

What you must do is, to get a fresh breath now and then, and let the stream carry you along."

Saxe looked horrified, and the guide interpreted his thoughts.

"You will easily do it. The stream is swifter now than when I went through, and I had all the distance to journey. You will only have half. It looks very horrible, but after the first plunge you do not mind. Now, herr, let me untie you."

He turned to Saxe, who submitted to the operation without a word, and then watched the guide as he carefully laid up the rope in rings upon his left arm. Meanwhile, Dale had unfastened his end, and stood waiting to hand it to the guide, who secured it round the coil before hanging it across his breast.

He then carefully examined the level of the water by bending downward and noting where it now ran against a crack in the rock.

"Sinking?" cried Saxe eagerly.

"Rising," replied the guide laconically.

Then there was a long silence, during which Saxe, as if doubting that the guide was right, carefully examined the walls of the chasm, but always with the same result: he could see rifts and places in plenty where he could have climbed high enough to be beyond reach of the water even if it rose thirty or forty feet; but they were all on the other side, which was slightly convex, while their side, as the guide had pointed out, was concave, and would have matched exactly if the sides had been driven together.

"No, herr," said Melchior quietly, "I should not have stopped so still if there had been a chance to get away. I should like to say one thing more about the water rising: if we are swept down, try both of you not to cling to each other or me for help. One is quite useless at such a time, and we should only exhaust each other."

Dale nodded, and Saxe felt as if one prop which held him to existence had been suddenly struck away.

There was another dreary pause, during which they listened to the waters' roar; and Melchior bent down again, and rose to his feet once more, with his brow rugged.

"Rising," he said hoa.r.s.ely; and then he leaned back against the rock with his arms crossed and his eyes half-closed, silent as his companions, for talking was painfully laborious at such a time.

An hour must have pa.s.sed, and every time Melchior bent down he rose with the same stern look upon his countenance, the darkness making it heavier-looking and more weird. Both Saxe and Dale could see the difference plainly now, for it must have been a foot higher at least, and they knew it was only a matter of time before it would reach their feet.

And as Saxe stood there, miserably dejected, he began thinking and picturing to himself the snow melting and trickling down thousands of tiny cracks which netted the tops of the mountains, and then joined together in greater veins, and these again in greater, till they formed rushing streams, and lastly rivers, which thundered into the lake.

Then he began thinking of his school-days, and then of his life at home, and the intense delight he had felt at the prospect of coming out to the Alps with Dale, the pleasures he had antic.i.p.ated, and how lightly he had treated all allusions to danger.

"I'll be careful," he had said: "I can take care of myself." And as he recalled all this, he dolefully asked himself how he could be careful at a time like this.

He was in the midst of these musings when Melchior bent down again, and rose once more so quickly, that Dale shouted to him.

"Rising? Shall we jump in and swim for it at once."

"No, herr; we must wait."

"Ah! look--look!" cried Saxe, pointing downward.

"Yes, yes: what?" cried the others in a breath.

"The poor mule--the poor mule!"

"What?"

"I saw it roll over. Its leg came out, and then I saw its back for a moment, and it was gone."

"Poor old Gros!" cried Melchior; and he hurried along the shelf as far as he could go, and knelt down.

He soon returned, looking very sad.

"I just caught a glint of its back in the water, and it was gone. Poor beast!" he said; "he did not seem to be struggling. I'm afraid he is gone."

This was a bad omen, and Dale looked very hard, and then Melchior once more went down on his knees and peered into the stream, to measure it with his eyes.