her eyes, Effendi, but she never remarked, "if you would hear looked. "When they were gone I threw myself before my master. them." 'This is thy work,' he snarled. missing. What happened to 'Lie not to me, dog!' I Sahkyr-afterwards?" taken the revolver in his hand. To tell the truth meant certain death. To lie, safety perhaps. So I lied, Effendi, saying, 'O Padishah, of this matter I am ignorant." shook with terror, for he had "Truly, I had forgotten," he replied. "Afterwards - Achmed married her. But when the war was ended and revolution came, he turned against the Sultan and divorced his wife, both revolution and divorce being signs of progress. Now he holds a high post, drinking champagne with women unveiled, for such is the fashion." "He seized me by the throat and shook me to and fro. Thy heart is blacker than thy face. Did she make no sign on the way hither, nor hint of some secret? Swear by the holy Satchili ! ' 66 6 6 My Lord,' I cried, on the way hither Sahkyr Hanoum was silent-in the expectation of great bliss. The secrets of her love were not for my ears. By the holy Satchili (a saint of little account in Africa, Effendi) I swear it.' "Slowly, and I think with regret, he loosed my throat and laid down the revolver. After a long silence, in which his eyes seemed to read my innermost thoughts, Love!' he said at last. . . . The love of Sahkyr! May thy lies be forgiven thee, Yamba Sembu, for thou too art a fool! Go, bring me the Circassian! We stood once more in the great courtyard under the setting moon. Yamba Sembu had received my offering with the dignity of one who gives much for very little. "There are other tales," he doorway. A TRAVERSE OF THE MATTERHORN. 66 (22-23 August 1927.) BY WILLIAM BELLOWS. ance, so familiar to at At the Belvedere" above The white sugar-loaf appearZermatt (10,820 feet). On waking at 1 A.M., I looked out from my narrow bedroom window into the still night. The stars seemed to hang like glow-lamps in the air. The giant obelisk of the Matterhorn was visible to its very summit, where it died away into the night. It seemed to be beckoning me upward. Its real message, if I could have read it, was, "I think you had better leave me alone to-day." At 3 A.M. came knocks on every door, and heavy boots began to move-a suggestion, at any rate, that the great peak might "go." I came downstairs and joined the semisilent group of yawning climbers. Remembering my past experience I avoided the coffee, and indulged in a small omelet. My guides, Leo and Otto Gentinetta (of Zermatt), were finishing their breakfast. "Well," I suggested, "it does not look bad outside, does it?" "It is fine now," they replied, "but we don't much like the look of things. The wind is in the wrong quarter." 80 We agreed to start, however, and roped up. As we approached the first rocks (3.25 A.M.), it was evident that the conditions were not normal. Zermatt for days past, was on the mountain still. Instead of making straight for the rocky spine, we worked our way well round to the right, and after scrambling up some steep snow, zigzagged back on to the familiar ledges. No lanterns were necessary; the moon had risen in a bank of cloud, and its subdued light was enough for us. From rock to snow, from snow to rock we mounted, steadily upward. Suddenly a brilliant light shone upon our footsteps from behind. The moon had sailed out from behind the clouds, and was shining on the rock with wonderful brilliancy. The "Belvedere" was already far below, whilst Monte Rosa and her sisters were peering at us in their moonlit glory through the abyss. Presently there came the light of dawn, often so cheering and full of hope, but to-day uncertain and somewhat sinister. Then the sun rose behind the Rimpfischhorn, all the colours of the spectrum tossed high into the sky, and every peak glorying in the sunrise splendour. At the Solvay hut (13,124 feet) I said to myself, "Now for a breather ' and for one of those pears in the rucksack!" But L. G. had is reinforced by the strength his eye on me. "We must not linger here," he said. The fine weather isn't going to last. We had better get on at once." I gave L. G. half my pear, and in five minutes we departed. That was the only halt of any consequence in thirteen hours. Soon afterwards I noticed that filmy clouds were beginning, so innocently, to girdle the summit of the mountain. and ardour of two first-class guides, what more can be said than that we were the victims of a form of mountain madness not understood by dwellers on the plains. We climbed the rocks immediately above the hut, and worked our way slowly and cautiously up that frosted treadmill, the Shoulder. Then we began to negotiate the fixed ropes, which were in an icy, most unpleasant, condition. condition. Other climbers could be seen above us on the ropes, and one or two of these (we heard later) had unpleasant experiences on their way down again to the "Solvay." A keen wind was blowing, and it became colder. All the rock crevices were filled with matted cakes of frozen snow. My guides asked me if I thought it were worth going on, as the conditions would probably be too bad for the descent on the Italian side. On a ledge we discussed the possibilities of success or failure, and decided that, as an hour and a half should see us on the summit, we would push on for the present and take counsel again later. Older and wiser men turn back, no doubt, but one A further pull up the remaining ropes and we were on the snow. Another fifteen minutes would bring us to the summit. But the driving clouds prevented our seeing much until, at 9.40 A.M., the Swiss signal mark (14,781 feet) suddenly emerged from the gloom only thirty yards away and above us. We grasped it for a moment, as if once again to touch terra firma, and passed along the summit ridge, with its beautiful cornices crowning the cruel, unplumbed precipices and abysses which descend to Italy. We declined the pressing invitation of the wind to visit the Zmutt valley on our way, and stumbling along in the increasingly the increasingly unwelcome blast, reached the Italian signalmark, which had evidently been struck by lightning. I wonder if a shorter visit than ours was ever paid to the top of the Matterhorn. It seemed disrespectful to come and go so quickly. Yet this was no place for a halt; so different now from the same spot just twelve months ago on that summer day when we could sit on our coiledup rope in sunlit space and We decided to descend a cannot always be older and little on the Italian side and wiser. And when one's verdict finally test the conditions. It is a wonderful moment in this " traverse when one begins the downward plunge; impressive at all times, but now full of mystery and foreboding. With firmer grip and tighter rope, and with an impatient kind of caution, we began the descent. In half an hour any question of a return to the summit had passed from our minds. We had, in fact, by this time burned our boats, and knew that if we were to find safety at all it must be at the Italian hut (12,763 feet), four or five hours farther on. Otto G. led down the rock, his brother bringing up the rear. Then suddenly the crisis came; in other words, the storm proper in its vilest mood. As we rounded a buttress on the exposed precipice the wind hurled itself at us in a frenzied icy blast-a triumph of mountain devilry,-filling the air with a million particles of driven snow; not the soft snowflakes of the Christmas card, but frozen atoms which bit into our eyes just when every ounce of vision was needed. Those who live in safety far below may disbelieve, if they wish, the legend that these high peaks are inhabited by evil spirits. But up here in the wild fury of the storm, the mountain was now obviously alive with them. They were dancing on every ledge, chasing us down the rocky walls and jeering at us from every icy shelf. Of course, like most evil disembodiments, they were invisible; and that is about all that could be said in their favour. The streaming angry gusts followed one another as with half-closed eyes we dropped from ledge to ledge, from slab to slab, setting our teeth and moving with the utmost speed which could be reconciled with care. There were moments when the wind would seem to be abating. Then it would come back with a fiercer blast than ever, when it was safer just to remain anchored as still as possible on the ticklish rock, which seemed to dip away into clouds and eternity below us. Continuing the storm-swept arête, it was always our bad fortune to remain exposed to the blast, for it was necessary above all to keep to the true line of descent, much as one would have given for the shelter of some friendly ridge. We came to the fixed Italian ropesthe ropes I had so often heard of and longed to see and handle. I had asked for ropes, and ropes I was to have! Here they were,-white and icy. We dropped and dangled down them at almost incautious speed. Oh, for a fairy godmother to hand me some new warm gloves! My own were quickly "icing up" with the cold, so I took them off and put underneath a pair of socks. But this manoeuvre having been noted by one of the malignant spirits, the ropes tore my gloves off and made things worse than ever. From time to time a thinning of the clouds would reveal an unsuspected presence, some gigantic buttress of rock dis- the air and mixing them with appearing into the unseen the flying snow. "Cognac, depths, something vast and near to us but soon obliterated, giving us just a passing vision and then cloud again. The Gentinettas took full advantage of these glimpses. Amid it all, and in spite of the tension of the descent, who would not have been overoverwhelmed by the sublimity of our surroundings? Even in this storm and on these cruel crags it seemed, in a sense, good to be here, to be privileged to enjoy at close quarters and, indeed, almost to take part in, this superb and never-to-beforgotten spectacle of the great peak "at bay." The cold, coupled with the short night's rest at the Hörnli, ended by making me feel sleepy. It seemed so tempting just to take a nap and forget it all. But there remained to me enough sense to realise that sleepiness might be a more subtle enemy than the chance of a slip. I told the guides, and they gave me cognac. I shook myself, concentrated on the details of each step, forced myself to remember our position, compelled myself to wakefulness. From shelves of sullen rock hung icicles, huge and sinister in their dark lairs. And then there were stalactites of frost, pearly grey in colour and lovely in form, forming curtains and fringes. At one point the wind wedged its way behind an array of this frosted drapery, ripped it off and tore it into bits, hurling them into please, cognac !" I cried-and oh! how grateful were those meagre thimblefuls! Along and down the slippery ledges we passed, but how insecure it all seemed, even when the rope was passed round knobs of rock for anchorage, and how cold and slight the finger-holds on those exposed corners. The guides kept manfully at their task, hardly speaking. Slipping and dangling down further ropes, Otto G. and I landed on our respective ledges, Leo as "last man down" performing the hardest task of all by prodigies of balance, encumbered with ice - axe and bulging rucksack. I hated the sight of those ropes, and still more the icy feel of them, but where should we have been without them? And what of the pioneers who came and went this way before there were such things as ropes ? honour to the men who worked those early miracles of climbing! Then there was the famous ladder. There is an almost vertical descent just above it, and as I came down I could see its three cables lashed over a ledge. It was anchored at the bottom, but was tugging and shaking in the wind, white, sinister, evil-looking. I clambered on to it and dropped from rung to rung. Whether terra firma lay a hundred or a thousand feet below me I could not say, for beneath was cloud. Leo G. was shouting from above, but I could All |