And the guide pointed to the extreme top of the highest peak, where, like a plume, a white vapour floated toward Italy.

"_Et autremain_, my good friend, when the Mont Blanc smokes his pipe, what does that mean?"

"It means, monsieur, that there is a terrible wind on the summit, and a snow-storm which will be down upon us before long. And I tell you, that's dangerous."

"Let us go back," said Bompard, turning green; and Tartarin added:--

"Yes, yes, certainly; no false vanity, of course."

But here the Swedish student interfered. He had paid his money to be taken to the top of Mont Blanc, and nothing should prevent his getting there. He would go alone, if no one would accompany him. "Cowards!

cowards!" he added, turning to the guides; and he uttered the insult in the same ghostly voice with which he had roused himself just before to suicide.

"You shall see if we are cowards... Fasten to the rope and forward!"

cried the head guide. This time, it was Bompard who protested energetically. He had had enough, and he wanted to be taken back.

Tartarin supported him vigorously.

"You see very well that that young man is insane..." he said, pointing to the Swede, who had already started with great strides through the heavy snow-flakes which the wind was beginning to whirl on all sides.

But nothing could stop the men who had just been called cowards. The marmots were now wide-awake and heroic. Tartarin could not even obtain a conductor to take him back with Bompard to the Grands-Mulets. Besides, the way was very easy; three hours' march, counting a detour of twenty minutes to get round that _roture_, if they were afraid to go through it alone.

"_Outre!_ yes, we are afraid of it..." said Bompard, without the slightest shame; and the two parties separated.

Bompard and the P. C. A. were now alone. They advanced with caution on the snowy desert, fastened to a rope: Tartarin first, feeling his way gravely with his ice-axe; filled with a sense of responsibility and finding relief in it.

"Courage! keep cool!.. We shall get out of it all right," he called to Bompard repeatedly. It is thus that an officer in battle, seeking to drive away his own fear, brandishes his sword and shouts to his men: "Forward! _s. n. de D_!.. all b.a.l.l.s don't kill."

At last, here they were at the end of that horrible creva.s.se. From there to the hut there were no great obstacles; but the wind blew, and blinded them with snowy whirlwinds. Further advance was impossible for fear of losing their way.

"Let us stop here for a moment," said Tartarin. A gigantic _serac_ of ice offered them a hollow at its base. Into it they crept, spreading down the india-rubber rug of the president and opening a flask of rum, the sole article of provision left them by the guides. A little warmth and comfort followed thereon, while the blows of the ice-axes, getting fainter and fainter up the height, told them of the progress of the expedition. They echoed in the heart of the P. C. A. like a pang of regret for not having done the Mont Blanc to the summit.

"Who 'll know it?" returned Bompard, cynically. "The porters kept the banner, and Chamonix will believe it is you."

"You are right," cried Tartarin, in a tone of conviction; "the honour of Tarascon is safe..."

But the elements grew furious, the north-wind a hurricane, the snow flew in volumes. Both were silent, haunted by sinister ideas; they remembered those ill-omened relics in the gla.s.s case of the old inn-keeper, his laments, the legend of that American tourist found petrified with cold and hunger, holding in his stiffened hand a note-book, in which his agonies were written down even to the last convulsion, which made the pencil slip and the signature uneven.

"Have you a note-book, Gonzague?"

And the other, comprehending without further explanation:--

"Ha! _va_, a note-book!.. If you think I am going to let myself die like that American!.. Quick, let's get on! come out of this."

"Impossible... At the first step we should be blown like straws and pitched into some abyss."

"Well then, we had better shout; the Grands-Mulets is not far off..."

And Bompard, on his knees, in the att.i.tude of a cow at pasture, lowing, roared out, "Help! help! help!.."

"To arms!" shouted Tartarin, in his most sonorous chest voice, which the grotto repercussioned in thunder.

Bompard seized his arm: "Horrors! the _serac!_".. Positively the whole block was trembling; another shout and that ma.s.s of acc.u.mulated icicles would be down upon their heads. They stopped, rigid, motionless, wrapped in a horrid silence, presently broken by a distant rolling sound, coming nearer, increasing, spreading to the horizon, and dying at last far down, from gulf to gulf.

"Poor souls!" murmured Tartarin, thinking of the Swede and his guides caught, no doubt, and swept away by the avalanche.

Bompard shook his head: "We are scarcely better off than they," he said.

And truly, their situation was alarming; but they did not dare to stir from their icy grotto, nor to risk even their heads outside in the squall.

To complete the oppression of their hearts, from the depths of the valley rose the howling of a dog, baying at death. Suddenly Tartarin, with swollen eyes, his lips quivering, grasped the hands of his companion, and looking at him gently, said:--

"Forgive me, Gonzague, yes, yes, forgive me. I was rough to you just now; I treated you as a liar..."

"Ah! _va_. What harm did that do me?"

"I had less right than any man to do so, for I have lied a great deal myself, and at this supreme moment I feel the need to open my heart, to free my bosom, to publicly confess my imposture..."

"Imposture, you?"

"Listen to me, my friend... In the first place, I never killed a lion."

"I am not surprised at that," said Bompard, composedly. "But why do you worry yourself for such a trifle?.. It is our sun that does it... we are born to lies... _Ve!_ look at me... Did I ever tell the truth since I came into the world? As soon as I open my mouth my South gets up into my head like a fit. The people I talk about I never knew; the countries, I 've never set foot in them; and all that makes such a tissue of inventions that I can't unravel it myself any longer."

"That's imagination, _pechere!_" sighed Tartarin; "we are liars of imagination."

"And such lies never do any harm to any one; whereas a malicious, envious man, like Coste-calde..."

"Don't ever speak to me of that wretch," interrupted the P. C. A.; then, seized with a sudden attack of wrath, he shouted: "_Coquin de bon sorti_ it is, all the same, rather vexing..." He stopped, at a terrified gesture from Bompard, "Ah! yes, true... the _serac_;" and, forced to lower his tone and mutter his rage, poor Tartarin continued his imprecations in a whisper, with a comical and amazing dislocation of the mouth,--"yes, vexing to die in the flower of one's age through the fault of a scoundrel who at this very moment is taking his coffee on the Promenade!.."

But while he thus fulminated, a clear spot began to show itself, little by little, in the sky. It snowed no more, it blew no more; and blue dashes tore away the gray of the sky. Quick, quick, _en route_; and once more fastened to the same rope, Tartarin, who took the lead as before, turned round, put a finger on his lips, and said:--

"You know, Gonzague, that all we have just been saying is between ourselves."

"_Te! pardi_..."

Full of ardour, they started, plunging to their knees in the fresh snow, which had buried in its immaculate cotton-wool all the traces of the caravan; consequently Tartarin was forced to consult his compa.s.s every five minutes. But that Taras-conese compa.s.s, accustomed to warm climates, had been numb with cold ever since its arrival in Switzerland.

The needle whirled to all four quarters, agitated, hesitating; therefore they determined to march straight before them, expecting to see the black rocks of the Grands-Mulets rise suddenly from the uniform silent whiteness of the slope, the peaks, the turrets, and _aiguilles_ that surrounded, dazzled, and also terrified them, for who knew what dangerous creva.s.ses it concealed beneath their feet?

"Keep cool, Gonzague, keep cool!"

"That 's just what I can't do," responded Bom-pard, in a lamentable voice. And he moaned: "_Ae_, my foot!.. _ae_, my leg!.. we are lost; never shall we get there..."

They had walked for over two hours when, about the middle of a field of snow very difficult to climb, Bompard called out, quite terrified:--

"Tartarin, we are going _up!_"

"Eh! _parbleu!_ I know that well enough," returned the P. C. A., almost losing his serenity.

"But according to my ideas, we ought to be going down."

"_Be!_ yes! but how can I help it? Let's go on to the top, at any rate; it may go down on the other side."