"It depends upon the day," said Chayne, "and the state of the snow."
"Yes, that is what I have gathered from the books. Every mountain may become dangerous."
"Yes."
"Each mountain," said Garratt Skinner, thoughtfully, "may reward its conquerors with death"; and for a little while he lay looking up to the green branches interlaced above his head. "Thus each mountain on the brightest day holds in its recesses mystery, and also death."
There had come a change already in the manner of the two men. They found themselves upon neutral ground. Their faces relaxed from wariness; they were no longer upon their guard. It seemed that an actual comradeship had sprung up between them.
"There is a mountain called the Grepon," said Skinner. "I have seen pictures of it--a strange and rather attractive pinnacle, with its knife-like slabs of rock, set on end one above the other--black rock splashed with red--and the overhanging boulder on the top. Have you climbed it?"
"Yes."
"There is a crack, I believe--a good place to get you into training."
Chayne laughed with the enjoyment of a man who recollects a stiff difficulty overcome.
"Yes, to the right of the Col between the Grepon and the Charmoz. There is a step half way up--otherwise there is very little hold and the crack is very steep."
They talked of other peaks, such as the Charmoz, where the first lines of ascent had given place to others more recently discovered, of new variations, new ascents and pinnacles still unclimbed; and then Garratt Skinner said:
"I saw that a man actually crossed the Col des Nantillons early this summer. It used to be called the Col de Blaitiere. He was killed with his guide, but after the real dangers were pa.s.sed. That seems to happen at times."
Chayne looked at Garratt Skinner in surprise.
"It is strange that you should have mentioned John Lattery"s death," he said, slowly.
"Why?" asked Garratt Skinner, turning quietly toward his companion. "I read of it in "The Times.""
"Oh, yes. No doubt it was described. What I meant was this. John Lattery was my great friend, and he was a distant kind of cousin to your friend Walter Hine, and indeed co-heir with him to Joseph Hine"s great fortune.
His death, I suppose, has doubled your friend"s inheritance."
Garratt Skinner raised himself up on his elbow. The announcement was really news to him.
"Is that so?" he asked. "It is true, then. The mountains hold death too in their recesses--even on the clearest day--yes, they hold death too!"
And letting himself fall gently back upon his cushions, he remained for a while with a very thoughtful look upon his face. Twice Chayne spoke to him, and twice he did not hear. He lay absorbed. It seemed that a new and engrossing idea had taken possession of his mind, and when he turned his eyes again to Chayne and spoke, he appeared to be speaking with reference to that idea rather than to any remarks of his companion.
"Did you ever ascend Mont Blanc by the Brenva route?" he asked. "There"s a thin ridge of ice--I read an account in Moore"s "Journal"--you have to straddle across the ridge with a leg hanging down either precipice."
Chayne shook his head.
"Lattery and I meant to try it this summer. The Dent du Requin as well."
"Ah, that is one of the modern rock scrambles, isn"t it? The last two or three hundred feet are the trouble, I believe."
And so the talk went on and the comradeship grew. But Chayne noticed that always Garratt Skinner came back to the great climbs of the earlier mountaineers, the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc, the Col Dolent, the two points of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte.
"But you, too, have climbed," Chayne cried at length.
"On winter nights by my fireside," replied Garratt Skinner, with a smile.
"I have a lame leg which would hinder me."
"Nevertheless, you left Miss Sylvia and myself behind when you led us over the hills to Dorchester."
It was Walter Hine who interrupted. He had come across the gra.s.s from behind, and neither of the two men had noticed his approach. But the moment when he did interrupt marked a change in their demeanor. The comradeship which had so quickly bloomed as quickly faded. It was the flower of an idle moment. Antagonism preceded and followed it. Thus, one might imagine, might sentries at the outposts of opposing armies pile their arms for half an hour and gossip of their homes or their children, or of something dear to both of them and separate at the bugle sound.
Garratt Skinner swung himself out of his hammock.
"Where"s Sylvia, Wallie?"
"She went up to her room."
Chayne waited for ten minutes, and for another ten, and still Sylvia did not appear. She was avoiding him. She could spend the afternoon with Walter Hine, but she must run to her room when he came upon the scene.
Jealousy flamed up in him. Every now and then a whimsical smile of amus.e.m.e.nt showed upon Garratt Skinner"s face and broadened into a grin.
Chayne was looking a fool, and was quite conscious of it. He rose abruptly from his chair.
"I must be going," he said, over loudly, and Garratt Skinner smiled.
"I"m afraid she won"t hear that," he said softly, measuring with his eyes the distance between the group and the house. "But come again, Captain Chayne, and sit it out."
Chayne flushed with anger. He said, "Thank you," and tried to say it jauntily and failed. He took his leave and walked across the lawn to the garden, trying to a.s.sume a carriage of indifference and dignity. But every moment he expected to hear the two whom he had left laughing at his discomfiture. Neither, however, did laugh. Walter Hine was, indeed, indignant.
"Why did you ask him to come again?" he asked, angrily, as the garden door closed upon Chayne.
Garratt Skinner laid his hand on Walter Hine"s arm.
"Don"t you worry, Wallie," he said, confidentially. "Every time Chayne comes here he loses ten marks. Give him rope! He does not, after all, know a great deal of geography."
CHAPTER XV
KENYON"S JOHN LATTERY
Chayne returned to London on the following day, restless and troubled.
Jealousy, he knew, was the natural lot of the lover. But that he should have to be jealous of a Walter Hine--there was the sting. He asked the old question over and over again, the old futile question which the unrewarded suitor puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in the world can she see in the fellow?" However, he did not lose heart. It was not in his nature to let go once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular goal.
Sooner or later, people and things would adjust themselves to their proper proportions in Sylvia"s eyes. Meanwhile there was something to be done--a doubt to be set at rest, perhaps a discovery to be made.
His conversation with Garratt Skinner, the subject which Garratt Skinner had chosen, and the knowledge with which he had spoken, had seemed to Chayne rather curious. A man might sit by his fireside and follow with interest, nay almost with the pa.s.sion of the mountaineer, the history of Alpine exploration and adventure. That had happened before now. And very likely Chayne would have troubled himself no more about Garratt Skinner"s introduction of the theme but for one or two circ.u.mstances which the more he reflected upon them became the more significant. For instance: Garratt Skinner had spoken and had asked questions about the new ascents made, the new pa.s.ses crossed within the last twenty years, just as a man would ask who had obtained his knowledge out of books. But of the earlier ascents he had spoken differently, though the difference was subtle and hard to define. He seemed to be upon more familiar ground. He left in Chayne"s mind a definite suspicion that he was speaking no longer out of books, but from an intimate personal knowledge, the knowledge of actual experience. The suspicion had grown up gradually, but it had strengthened almost into a conviction.
It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner"s conversation perpetually recurred--the Aiguille Verte, the Grand and the Pet.i.t Dru and the traverse between them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jora.s.ses and the Brenva route--yes, above all, the Brenva route up Mont Blanc. Moreover, how in the world should he know that those slabs of black granite on the top of the Grepon were veined with red--splashed with red as he described them? Unless he had ascended them, or the Aiguille des Charmoz opposite--how should he know? The philosophy of his guide Michel Revailloud flashed across Chayne"s mind. "One needs some one with whom to exchange one"s memories."
Had Garratt Skinner felt that need and felt it with so much compulsion that he must satisfy it in spite of himself? Yet why should he practise concealment at all? There certainly had been concealment. Chayne remembered how more than once Garratt Skinner had checked himself before at last he had yielded. It was in spite of himself that he had spoken.
And then suddenly as the train drew up at Vauxhall Station for the tickets to be collected, Chayne started up in his seat. On the rocks of the Argentiere, beside the great gully, as they descended to the glacier, Sylvia"s guide had spoken words which came flying back into Chayne"s thoughts. She had climbed that day, though it was her first mountain, as if knowledge of the craft had been born in her. How to stand upon an ice-slope, how to hold her ax--she had known. On the rocks, too! Which foot to advance, with which hand to grasp the hold--she had known.
Suppose that knowledge _had_ been born in her! Why, then those words of her guide began to acquire significance. She had reminded him of some one--some one whose name he could not remember--but some one with whom years ago he had climbed. And then upon the rocks, some chance movement of Sylvia"s, some way in which she moved from ledge to ledge, had revealed to him the name--Gabriel Strood.
Was it possible, Chayne asked? If so, what dark thing was there in the record of Strood"s life that he must change his name, disappear from the world, and avoid the summer nights, the days of sunshine and storm on the high rock-ledges and the ice-slope?