and broke round the buttresses of the dreadful rock; against its sheer precipices the driven clouds wrecked themselves in swirls of smoke; and, black and terrible, above the movement of the storm, behind the racing riot of grey cloud, loomed and vanished and loomed again the great devil's pinnacles that broke the sky and split the winds into streaming rack. Blaven flew its storms like a banner.
And from some high black corrie among the peaks spilled the tiny trickle of water that was to form the gully of the Sputan Dhu. 1 could just see it, away up on some remote and fearful face of rock—a thin white line, no more, traced across the grey, a slender, steady line that seemed not to move at all save when the force of the wind took it and made it waver a little, like gossamer in the breeze. And the slowly falling gossamer line of white water had cut, century by century, deep into the living rock, slashing a dark fissure for itself down the side of the mountain. Through this it slid, and rushed, and slid again, now hidden, now leaping clear, but all the time growing and loudening and gathering force until it reached the lowest pitch of the mountain and sank clamorously out of sight in the cleft that split the upper edge of the precipice above the scree.
And then at last it sprang free of the mountain. From the base of the cleft, some hundred feet up the face, it leaped as from a gutterspout, a narrow jet of roaring water that jumped clear of the rock to plunge the last hundred feet in one sheer white leap of foam. And then it vanished into the loud depths of the gully it had bitten through the scree.
Up the edge of this gully the rescue party slowly picked its way. At intervals, someone shouted, but the only answer was the bark of a startled raven, which wheeled out from the cliff above, calling hoarsely among the mocking echoes.
I clawed my way over the wet rocks, my shoes slipping on slimy tufts of grass and thrift, my breath coming in uneven gasps, my face damp and burning with exertion in spite of the intermittent buffets of the chill wet wind. The men forged steadily ahead, their seemingly careless slouch covering the ground at a remarkable speed. I clambered and gasped in their wake, lifting my eyes occasionally to the menace or those black clirts ahead that rode, implacably grim and remote, above the flying tails of the storm. Down to our left, at the bottom of the gully, the water brawled and bellowed and swirled in its devil's potholes. Here was a veritable demon's cleft; a black fissure, seventy feet deep, bisecting the scree slope, its walls were sheer, black and dripping, its floor a mass of boulders and wrestling water.
Suddenly, and for the first time clearly, 1 realized that somewhere here, in this wilderness of cruel rock and weltering water, two young women were probably lying dead. Or, at best, alive and maimed and unable, above the intermittent roar of wind and water, to make themselves heard.
I found myself repeating, breathlessly, stupidly, in a whisper: "Roberta . . . Roberta. . . ."
The man directly in front of me was Alastair. He turned and gave me a quick, reassuring smile, and reached out a big hand to steady me up the slope.
"Don't go too near the edge, Janet. . . that's better. We'll soon get them now, if Dougal was right. These rescue chaps know every inch of the place, you know."
"But . . . Alastair"—exertion had made me only half articulate—"they can't be alive still. They must have— must be—"
"If they managed to creep into shelter, they could quite easily be alive, providing they weren't seriously hurt by a fall. It wasn't cold last night."
"Do you believe there were three of them?"
"Dougal Macrae isn't exactly given to flights of fancy," said Alastair.
"Are any of the local men missing?"
"I'm told not."
"Then, if there were three people, the third climber must be someone from the hotel. And nobody's missing from there either."
"Exactly so," said Alastair, in a blank
And from some high black corrie among the peaks spilled the tiny trickle of water that was to form the gully of the Sputan Dhu. 1 could just see it, away up on some remote and fearful face of rock—a thin white line, no more, traced across the grey, a slender, steady line that seemed not to move at all save when the force of the wind took it and made it waver a little, like gossamer in the breeze. And the slowly falling gossamer line of white water had cut, century by century, deep into the living rock, slashing a dark fissure for itself down the side of the mountain. Through this it slid, and rushed, and slid again, now hidden, now leaping clear, but all the time growing and loudening and gathering force until it reached the lowest pitch of the mountain and sank clamorously out of sight in the cleft that split the upper edge of the precipice above the scree.
And then at last it sprang free of the mountain. From the base of the cleft, some hundred feet up the face, it leaped as from a gutterspout, a narrow jet of roaring water that jumped clear of the rock to plunge the last hundred feet in one sheer white leap of foam. And then it vanished into the loud depths of the gully it had bitten through the scree.
Up the edge of this gully the rescue party slowly picked its way. At intervals, someone shouted, but the only answer was the bark of a startled raven, which wheeled out from the cliff above, calling hoarsely among the mocking echoes.
I clawed my way over the wet rocks, my shoes slipping on slimy tufts of grass and thrift, my breath coming in uneven gasps, my face damp and burning with exertion in spite of the intermittent buffets of the chill wet wind. The men forged steadily ahead, their seemingly careless slouch covering the ground at a remarkable speed. I clambered and gasped in their wake, lifting my eyes occasionally to the menace or those black clirts ahead that rode, implacably grim and remote, above the flying tails of the storm. Down to our left, at the bottom of the gully, the water brawled and bellowed and swirled in its devil's potholes. Here was a veritable demon's cleft; a black fissure, seventy feet deep, bisecting the scree slope, its walls were sheer, black and dripping, its floor a mass of boulders and wrestling water.
Suddenly, and for the first time clearly, 1 realized that somewhere here, in this wilderness of cruel rock and weltering water, two young women were probably lying dead. Or, at best, alive and maimed and unable, above the intermittent roar of wind and water, to make themselves heard.
I found myself repeating, breathlessly, stupidly, in a whisper: "Roberta . . . Roberta. . . ."
The man directly in front of me was Alastair. He turned and gave me a quick, reassuring smile, and reached out a big hand to steady me up the slope.
"Don't go too near the edge, Janet. . . that's better. We'll soon get them now, if Dougal was right. These rescue chaps know every inch of the place, you know."
"But . . . Alastair"—exertion had made me only half articulate—"they can't be alive still. They must have— must be—"
"If they managed to creep into shelter, they could quite easily be alive, providing they weren't seriously hurt by a fall. It wasn't cold last night."
"Do you believe there were three of them?"
"Dougal Macrae isn't exactly given to flights of fancy," said Alastair.
"Are any of the local men missing?"
"I'm told not."
"Then, if there were three people, the third climber must be someone from the hotel. And nobody's missing from there either."
"Exactly so," said Alastair, in a blank
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