He hadn't been dancing.
He was the "Boots" of the hotel, and was attending
to business.
CHAPTER XLIV
[I Scale Mont Blanc - by Telescope]
After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went
out in the yard and watched the gangs of excursioning
tourists arriving and departing with their mules and guides
and porters; then we took a look through the telescope
at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was brilliant
with sunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly
five hundred yards away. With the naked eye we could
dimly make out the house at the Pierre Pointue, which is
located by the side of the great glacier, and is more
than three thousand feet above the level of the valley;
but with the telescope we could see all its details.
While I looked, a woman rode by the house on a mule, and I
saw her with sharp distinctness; I could have described
her dress. I saw her nod to the people of the house,
and rein up her mule, and put her hand up to shield
her eyes from the sun. I was not used to telescopes;
in fact, I had never looked through a good one before;
it seemed incredible to me that this woman could be
so far away. I was satisfied that I could see all
these details with my naked eye; but when I tried it,
that mule and those vivid people had wholly vanished,
and the house itself was become small and vague. I tried
the telescope again, and again everything was vivid.
The strong black shadows of the mule and the woman were
flung against the side of the house, and I saw the mule's
silhouette wave its ears.
The telescopulist - or the telescopulariat - I do not know
which is right - said a party were making a grand ascent,
and would come in sight on the remote upper heights,
presently; so we waited to observe this performance.
Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand with
a party on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely to be able
to say I had done it, and I believed the telescope
could set me within seven feet of the uppermost man.
The telescoper assured me that it could. I then asked
him how much I owed him for as far as I had got? He said,
one franc. I asked him how much it would cost to make
the entire ascent? Three francs. I at once determined
to make the entire ascent. But first I inquired
if there was any danger? He said no - not by telescope;
said he had taken a great many parties to the summit,
and never lost a man. I asked what he would charge to let
my agent go with me, together with such guides and porters
as might be necessary. He said he would let Harris go
for two francs; and that unless we were unusually timid,
he should consider guides and porters unnecessary;
it was not customary to take them, when going by telescope,
for they were rather an encumbrance than a help.
He said that the party now on the mountain were approaching
the most difficult part, and if we hurried we should
overtake them within ten minutes, and could then join them
and have the benefit of their guides and porters without
their knowledge, and without expense to us.
I then said we would start immediately. I believe I
said it calmly, though I was conscious of a shudder
and of a paling cheek, in view of the nature of the
exploit I was so unreflectingly engaged in. But the old
daredevil spirit was upon me, and I said that as I
had committed myself I would not back down; I would
ascend Mont Blanc if it cost me my life. I told the man
to slant his machine in the proper direction and let us be off.
Harris was afraid and did not want to go, but I heartened
him up and said I would hold his hand all the way; so he
gave his consent, though he trembled a little at first.
I took a last pathetic look upon the pleasant summer scene
about me, then boldly put my eye to the glass and prepared
to mount among the grim glaciers and the everlasting snows.
We took our way carefully and cautiously across the great
Glacier des Bossons, over yawning and terrific crevices
and among imposing crags and buttresses of ice which were
fringed with icicles of gigantic proportions. The desert
of ice that stretched far and wide about us was wild and
desolate beyond description, and the perils which beset us
were so great that at times I was minded to turn back.
But I pulled my pluck together and pushed on.
We passed the glacier safely and began to mount
the steeps beyond, with great alacrity. When we
were seven minutes out from the starting-point, we
reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect;
an apparently limitless continent of gleaming snow was
tilted heavenward before our faces. As my eye followed
that awful acclivity far away up into the remote skies,
it seemed to me that all I had ever seen before of sublimity
and magnitude was small and insignificant compared to this.
We rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed.
Within three minutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us,
and stopped to observe them. They were toiling up a long,
slanting ridge of snow - twelve persons, roped together some
fifteen feet apart, marching in single file, and strongly
marked against the clear blue sky. One was a woman.
We could see them lift their feet and put them down;
we saw them swing their alpenstocks forward in unison,
like so many pendulums, and then bear their weight
upon them; we saw the lady wave her handkerchief.
They dragged themselves upward in a worn and weary way,
for they had been climbing steadily from the Grand Mulets,
on the Glacier des Dossons, since three in the morning,
and it was eleven, now.
