382 SHORT STALKS 



over our heads every few minutes, or struck the rocks near 

 us, gkincing into space with a highly suggestive whiz. 

 But we had chosen our route on a careful estimate of the 

 Italance of risk, and as we could not avoid these missiles, 

 we grew callous to them. 



J\ly recollection of the next four hours is dim. I only 

 know that when at leno-th darkness overtook us, we were 

 still entanii'led on this orim face, and hioli enoui>li to look 

 over the Col de Miage. We had had no temptation to 

 dawdle, so that if in that time we had only made 

 fifteen hundred feet of perpendicular descent, it was 

 Ijecause the place was undeniably treacherous and nasty. 

 The spot we had reached was about two-thirds of the way 

 down the block face immediately below the summit. The 

 positions of Mont Blanc and the Dome are dindy seen to 

 right and left of it resj^ectively. 



When light at length failed us, we had perforce to stop. 

 A shelf was found, if that can be so described, which was 

 not Hat, but tipped at an angle that necessitated great 

 caution throughout the night. Our clothes were soaked 

 with perspiration and the fine j^enetrating snow. Any 

 garment which we took off froze in a few minutes to the 

 rigidity of a board. Such meat as we had left was also 

 frozen ; but we had little inclination for food, for our 

 drink was exhausted. A stream which we could hear 

 somewhere below us, but could not reach, made this more 

 tantalising. This sound gradually died out, as its sources 

 were dammed by the frost. Fortunately for us it was, 

 relatively, a warm night, that is to say, it would, with a. 

 clear sky, have been much cokler, but the wind had moder- 

 ated, and, as it blew from the south, a canopy of cloud 



