You are here
قراءة كتاب The Crystal Hunters: A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
The Crystal Hunters: A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps
boy, and you’ll soon learn how great they are. It takes time. Now, understand this: I do not want to interfere with your enjoyment; but if we are to carry out my plans, it must be work and not play.”
“Why not both?” said Saxe merrily.
“Because we must husband our strength, so as to always have a little left to use in an emergency. Now, then, we understand each other, do we not?”
“Yes, Mr Dale.”
“Then forward.”
The guide nodded his head good-humouredly; but he did not stir.
“Well?” said the Englishman.
“Let us understand each other,” said the guide quietly. “Those who go up into the mountains must be brothers. Now your life is in danger, and I save you; next my life is in peril, and you save me. A guide is something more than one who goes to show the way.”
“Of course,” said Richard Dale, eyeing the man curiously: “that is why I have chosen you. Friends told me that Melchior Staffeln was a man whom I might trust.”
“I thank them,” said the guide. “And the herr wishes me to be his guide for days and weeks or months, and show him the way up the great mountains as I have shown others?”
“No!” said Dale sharply. “I want you to take me right in among the heights, passes and glaciers where the visitors do not go.”
The guide looked at him fixedly.
“Why? what for?” he said. “You did not tell me this when you came up to the chalet last night, and sent for me.”
“No. I tell you now.”
“Why do you wish to go? There may be danger.”
“I’ll tell you. I want to see the mountains and study them. I would search for metals and specimens of the stones in the higher rocks.”
“Crystals?”
“Yes.”
“Hah!” said the guide. “To see if there is gold and silver and precious stones?”
“Yes.”
“If it is known you will be stopped by the magistrate of the commune.”
“Why? I do not want to rob the country.”
“But the gold—the silver.”
“Let’s find them first, man; and see what the chief magistrate says then. Can you lead me to places where I can find these?”
“Perhaps.”
“Will you?”
The man was silent for a few minutes. Then,—“Will the herr be straightforward and honest to my country, and if he finds such treasures in the mountains, will he go to the magistrates and get leave to work them?”
“Of that you may be sure. Will you come?”
The man was silent and thoughtful again for a minute.
“If the people know, we shall be watched night and day.”
“They must not know.”
“No, they must not know.”
“Then you will come?”
“Yes,” said the man, “I will come.”
“Then, once more, forward,” said Dale. “Saxe, my lad, our search for Nature’s treasures has begun.”
Chapter Two.
An Alpine Valley.
The track for some distance up the valley was so rugged and narrow that the little party had to go in single file; but after a time they came upon a more open part, less encumbered with rock, and, with the lad on ahead, Richard Dale strode up abreast of the guide, and, taking out his case, lit a cigar, and offered one to the Swiss.
The guide shook his head.
“No, thank you, herr,” he said; “I seldom smoke anything but my pipe.”
They went on for a while in silence, the only sound falling upon their ears being the continuous roar of the torrent-like river which rushed down the valley in a narrow chasm far below their feet—one series of thundering cascades, all foam and milky glacier water.
Patches of pine forest, with the trees crowded close together, every stem straight as an arrow, ran for some distance up the sides of the vale; but there was no sign or note of bird. All was solemn and still, save that deep-toned roar.
Saxe stopped suddenly, waited till they came near, and held up his hand.
“What is it?” said Dale.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Mr Dale? Only two days ago in London, and here we are in this wild place! Why, you can’t hear a sound but the water!”
Almost as he spoke he bounded from the spot where he was standing, and ran a few yards in alarm.
For from somewhere unseen and high above, there was a sudden roar, a terrific crash, then a rushing sound, followed by a dead silence of a few seconds, and then the earth seemed to receive a quivering blow, resulting in a boom like that of some monstrous gun, and the noise now ran up the valley, vibrating from side to side, till it died away in a low moan.
The boy looked wildly from one to the other, to see that his uncle was quite unmoved and that the guide was smiling at him.
“Then that was thunder?” he said inquiringly.
“No; a big piece of rock split off and fell,” replied the guide.
“Is there no danger?”
“It would have been dangerous if we had been there.”
“But where is ‘there’?”
“Up yonder,” said the guide, pointing over the pine-wood toward the top of the wall of rock, a perpendicular precipice fully three thousand feet in height. “The rock split off up the mountain somewhere, rushed down, and then fell.”
“Can we see?”
“Oh yes; I could find the place,” said the guide, looking at Dale.
“No, no: we will go on,” said the latter. “It would take us two or three hours. That sort of thing is often going on out here, Saxe.”
“But why did it fall? Is any one blasting rock over there?”
“Yes, Nature: blasting with cold and heat.”
Saxe looked at him inquiringly.
“You’ll soon understand all this, my lad,” said Dale. “The rocks high up the mountains are always crumbling down.”
“Crumbling? I don’t call that crumbling.”
“Call it what you like; but that was a crumb which fell down here, my lad. You see the snow and ice over yonder?”
“Yes.”
“Well, of course that means that there is constant freezing going on there, except when the sun is blazing down at midday.”
“Yes, I understand that,” said Saxe.
“Well, the rock gets its veins charged with water from the melting of the snow in the daytime, and at night it freezes again; the water expands in freezing, and splits the rock away, but it does not slip, because it is kept in position by the ice. By-and-by, on an extra hot day, that ice melts, and, there being nothing to support it, the mass of rock falls, and drives more with it, perhaps, and the whole comes thundering down.”
“I should like to see how big the piece was,” said Saxe; “it must have been close here.”
“No,” said the guide; “perhaps two miles away.”
Dale made a sign, and they went on again.
“Wait a bit, Saxe, and you’ll see plenty of falling rock. I dare say we shall be cannonaded by stones some day.”
“But shall we see an avalanche!”
“It’s a great chance if we see one of the great falls which fill valleys and bury villages; but if you keep your eyes open I dare say we shall see several small ones to-day.”
The lad glanced quickly up, and the meaning of that look was read directly.
“No,” said Dale quietly, “I am not joking, but speaking frankly to one whom I have chosen as my companion in this enterprise. Come, Saxe, you and I must now be more like helpmates—I mean, less of man and boy, more like two men who trust each other.”
“I shall be very glad,” said the boy eagerly.
“Then we start so from this moment. We’ll forget you are only sixteen or seventeen.”
“Nearly seventeen.”
“Yes. For, without being gloomy, we must be serious. As Melchior says, ‘the mountains are solemn in their greatness.’ Look!”
They had just turned the corner of a huge buttress of rock, and Dale pointed up the valley to the wonderful