Somewhere within
those last two hundred feet the fatal slip had been made; or perhaps a
stone had fallen.
"For how long did you watch them?" asked Chayne.
"For a few minutes only. My party was anxious to get back to Chamonix.
But they seemed in no difficulty, monsieur. They were going well."
Chayne shook his head at the hopeful words and handed his telegram to
Michel Revailloud.
"The day before yesterday they were on the rocks of the Blaitiere," he
said. "I think we had better go up to the Mer de Glace and look for them
at the foot of the cliffs."
"Monsieur, I have eight guides here and two will follow in the evening
when they come home. We will send three of them, as a precaution, up the
Mer de Glace. But I do not think they will find Monsieur Lattery there."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I believe Monsieur Lattery has made the first passage of the
Col des Nantillons from the east," he said, with a peculiar solemnity. "I
think we must look for them on the western side of the pass, in the
crevasses of the Glacier des Nantillons."
"Surely not," cried Chayne. True, the Glacier des Nantillons in places
was steep. True, there were the seracs--those great slabs and pinnacles
of ice set up on end and tottering, high above, where the glacier curved
over a brow of rock and broke--one of them might have fallen.
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