The Crystal Hunters Part 53

"What's the matter?--Giddy?"

"No."

"Come down, then."

"I--can't," said the boy slowly.

"Then climb on a little farther, and come down there."

"No: I can't move."

"Nonsense. This isn't a loadstone mountain, and you're not iron. Come down."

"I--I did try," said Saxe; "but I had to make a jump to get here, and I can't jump back: there's nothing to take hold of."

Dale scanned the position anxiously, seeing now for the first time that the rough angles and ridge-like pieces of rock along which the boy had made his way ceased about five feet from where he stood, and that he must have jumped on to a narrow piece of stone not a foot long and somewhere about a third of that width; and though, in the vast chasm in which they both were, the height above him, where Saxe was spread-eagled, as it were, against the perpendicular rock, looked perfectly insignificant, he was close upon a hundred feet up, and a fall would have been very serious, if not fatal.

"You foolish fellow!" Dale said cheerfully, so as not to alarm him at a time when he seemed to have quite lost his nerve: "pretty mess to get yourself in! Fortunately I have the rope."

As Dale spoke he looked about wildly for some means of utilising that rope; but he could see none.

"Why did you go up there instead of keeping down here?"

"I thought I saw an opening here," said Saxe; "and there is one big enough to creep in. I am holding by the side of it now, or I should go down."

"Then go on holding by the side," said Dale cheerily, though his face was working; and then, to take the boy's attention from his perilous position, "Not a crystal cave, is it?"

"Yes. I felt big crystals inside: I am holding on by one."

"Bravo! Well done, boy; but you are making yourself a front door."

"Don't--don't laugh at me, Mr Dale," said Saxe piteously. "It is very hard work to hold on."

"I'm not laughing at you, Saxe, my boy: only saying a word to cheer you up. You haven't got a creva.s.se under you, and if the worst came I should have to catch you. Now, let's see: here's a ledge away to your right; but it's too far for you to leap, and there is nothing to catch hold of. If I got the rope up to you, you could fasten it somewhere and slide down."

"Fasten it? To what?"

"Ay?--to what?" said Dale to himself. Then aloud: "You haven't a very good hold there, have you?"

"No--dreadful," came faintly.

"I say, boy; don't take that tone. Mountaineers are people full of resources. You say you have an opening behind you?"

"Yes."

"Then can you hold on with one hand?"

"I--I think so."

"Think! Say yes!" shouted Dale angrily. "Now, hold on with one hand."

"Yes."

"Where's your ice-axe?"

"I--I had forgotten that."

"I can see that, sir. Now put your hand behind you and pull it carefully out of your belt. Steady! there is no hurry. Don't drop it."

Saxe pa.s.sed his hand behind him, and gradually hitched the axe out from where he had been carrying it like a sword while he climbed to the hole.

"That's better. Mind! Now push it into the hole and turn it across.

Can you?"

Saxe obeyed his instructor, and Dale saw that the opening was about the level of the lad's waist, and evidently roomy--at least, amply large inside for the axe to be crossed.

"Now you've got something better to hold on by, and can hook your arm over it to rest your hand."

"Yes," cried Saxe, who was already doing this. "My hand was so horribly cramped, and it seemed as if you would never come."

"Time always seems long when we are in trouble. Now then, do you feel safer?"

"Oh yes," cried Saxe; and there was a complete change in his tone. "I can hold on now."

"Of course you can. Pretty sort of an Alpine hand you are, to give up without thinking of your tools!"

"Yes, I had forgotten my axe."

"You'll forget your head next, sir. Now, tell me: how am I to get the rope up to you?"

"Can you throw it?"

"No, I can't; nor you neither. Now, if you had been carrying it instead of me, how easy it would be! Of course you have not got that ball of string with you?"

"No," said Saxe sadly.

"No one should travel without a knife and a bit of string in his pocket; and yet, if you had a bit of string, it would not be long enough. Now, what's to be done?"

"I don't know," cried Saxe.

"That shows you are only an apprentice at mountaineering yet. I do know."

"You can see a way to get me down, sir?" said Saxe joyously.

"Yes: two ways. One is quick, short and dangerous."

"More dangerous than being as I am?"