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"His eyes were on mine for a moment . . . then they turned from me to the couloir and the great space below, It was then he uttered it, stretching out his hands as the rope pulled him forward yet not as one afraid. 'Mother! he cried: just that, and only once 'Mother!" Mr. Frank looked up sharply, and turned his head towards Miss Bracy.
Then he fell when he threw the rope at the only place where a fall would not have led to his shooting down the couloir. Afterwards, although speed was urgent, he was very slow in going back for help." "Besides, he knew exposure to the frost would be very dangerous for you; you told him you had been ill," Lucy interposed. "I did," Lawrence agreed.
He had climbed down the slippery stairs through that dank couloir or funnel in the rock overhung with drooping maidenhair and ivy and umbrageous carobs. He had rested on the little platform outside the cavern's vineyard far below, and upwards, at the narrow ribbon of sky overhead. Then he had gone within, to examine what was left of the old masonry, the phallic column and other relics of the past.
When about two-thirds of the way down, the exhausted youth was forced to stop for a few seconds to rest. Just then several pieces of ice, the size of a man's head, rushed down the couloir and dashed close past him. They served to show the usual direction of an avalanche. Fearing they were the prelude to something worse, he quickly cut his way to the side of the couloir.
At this crisis the chaotic mass was driven with terrible violence against the cliffs to the left of the couloir, and bounding, we might almost say fiercely, to the right, rushed out upon the frozen plain about two hundred yards in advance of the spot on which they stood.
It did indeed seem the wisest thing that man or woman could do in the circumstances, for, high up among the wild cliffs, huge masses of rock, mingled with ice, dirt, water, and snow, were seen rushing down a "couloir," or steep gully, straight towards them. "Rest tranquil where you are," said the guide, laying his hand on the artist's arm; "the couloir takes a bend, you see, near the bottom.
"You mean he couldn't talk in that good-humored, witty way if he had plotted to leave you on the couloir?" "Well," said Lawrence, "I suppose I did feel something of the kind." "I don't know that it's very logical," Lucy rejoined, hiding her alarm. "You agreed with Foster's conclusions when he was here." "I did, to some extent. The way Jake argued out the matter made things look pretty bad."
The bodies were found the next day and brought down. We did all that was possible. Shall I take you and madame to the grave?" But the guide had not finished. "He fell almost on top of Michel, and the two went spinning down the couloir out of sight.
Lewis was a little surprised at the proposal, but, being quite satisfied with his success, and not unwilling to join in anything that smacked of exploration, he readily assented; and, ere long, the two aspiring spirits were high above the spot where the chamois had fallen, and struggling with the difficulties of couloir and crevasse.
But to crawl up that couloir with a sick heart and a desperate impulse to hurry was the worst sort of nightmare. The place was as steep as a wall of smooth black ice that seemed hard as granite. Wake did the step-cutting, and I admired him enormously. He did not seem to use much force, but every step was hewn cleanly the right size, and they were spaced the right distance.
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