In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XII ELEVEN THOUSAND FEET ALOFT

NOTH­ING of im­por­tance had oc­curred hith­er­to in the pas­sage through Chili; but all the ob­sta­cles and dif­fi­cul­ties in­ci­dent to a moun­tain jour­ney were about to crowd on the trav­el­ers now.

One im­por­tant ques­tion had first to be set­tled. Which pass would take them over the An­des, and yet not be out of their fixed route?

On ques­tion­ing the CAT­APEZ on the sub­ject, he replied:

“There are on­ly two prac­ti­ca­ble pass­es that I know of in this part of the Cordilleras.”

“The pass of Ar­ica is one un­doubt­ed­ly dis­cov­ered by Val­divia Men­doze,” said Pa­ganel.

“Just so.”

“And that of Vil­lar­ica is the oth­er.”

“Pre­cise­ly.”

“Well, my good fel­low, both these pass­es have on­ly one fault; they take us too far out of our route, ei­ther north or south.”

“Have you no oth­er to pro­pose?” asked the Ma­jor.

“Cer­tain­ly,” replied Pa­ganel. “There is the pass of An­tu­co, on the slope of the vol­cano, in lat­itude, 37 de­grees 30′ , or, in oth­er words, on­ly half a de­gree out of our way.”

“That would do, but are you ac­quaint­ed with this pass of An­tu­co, CAT­APEZ?” said Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, your Lord­ship, I have been through it, but I did not men­tion it, as no one goes that way but the In­di­an shep­herds with the herds of cat­tle.”

“Oh, very well; if mares and sheep and ox­en can go that way, we can, so let’s start at once.”

The sig­nal for de­par­ture was giv­en im­me­di­ate­ly, and they struck in­to the heart of the val­ley of Las Le­jas, be­tween great mass­es of chalk crys­tal. From this point the pass be­gan to be dif­fi­cult, and even dan­ger­ous. The an­gles of the de­cliv­ities widened and the ledges nar­rowed, and fright­ful precipices met their gaze. The mules went cau­tious­ly along, keep­ing their heads near the ground, as if scent­ing the track. They marched in file. Some­times at a sud­den bend of the road, the MAD­RI­NA would dis­ap­pear, and the lit­tle car­avan had to guide them­selves by the dis­tant tin­kle of her bell. Of­ten some capri­cious wind­ing would bring the col­umn in two par­al­lel lines, and the CAT­APEZ could speak to his PE­ONS across a crevasse not two fath­oms wide, though two hun­dred deep, which made be­tween them an in­sep­ara­ble gulf.

Gle­nar­van fol­lowed his guide step by step. He saw that his per­plex­ity was in­creas­ing as the way be­came more dif­fi­cult, but did not dare to in­ter­ro­gate him, right­ly enough, per­haps, think­ing that both mules and mule­teers were very much gov­erned by in­stinct, and it was best to trust to them.

For about an hour longer the CAT­APEZ kept wan­der­ing about al­most at hap­haz­ard, though al­ways get­ting high­er up the moun­tains. At last he was obliged to stop short. They were in a nar­row val­ley, one of those gorges called by the In­di­ans “que­brads,” and on reach­ing the end, a wall of por­phyry rose per­pen­dic­ular­ly be­fore them, and barred fur­ther pas­sage. The CAT­APEZ, af­ter vain at­tempts at find­ing an open­ing, dis­mount­ed, crossed his arms, and wait­ed. Gle­nar­van went up to him and asked if he had lost his way.

“No, your Lord­ship,” was the re­ply.

“But you are not in the pass of An­tu­co.”

“We are.”

“You are sure you are not mis­tak­en?”

“I am not mis­tak­en. See! there are the re­mains of a fire left by the In­di­ans, and there are the marks of the mares and the sheep.”

“They must have gone on then.”

“Yes, but no more will go; the last earth­quake has made the route im­pass­able.”

“To mules,” said the Ma­jor, “but not to men.”

“Ah, that’s your con­cern; I have done all I could. My mules and my­self are at your ser­vice to try the oth­er pass­es of the Cordilleras.”

“And that would de­lay us?”

“Three days at least.”

Gle­nar­van lis­tened silent­ly. He saw the CAT­APEZ was right. His mules could not go far­ther. When he talked of re­turn­ing, how­ev­er, Gle­nar­van ap­pealed to his com­pan­ions and said:

“Will you go on in spite of all the dif­fi­cul­ty?”

“We will fol­low your Lord­ship,” replied Tom Austin.

“And even pre­cede you,” added Pa­ganel. “What is it af­ter all? We have on­ly to cross the top of the moun­tain chain, and once over, noth­ing can be eas­ier of de­scent than the slopes we shall find there. When we get be­low, we shall find BAQUE­ANOS, Ar­gen­tine shep­herds, who will guide us through the Pam­pas, and swift hors­es ac­cus­tomed to gal­lop over the plains. Let’s go for­ward then, I say, and with­out a mo­ment’s hes­ita­tion.”

“For­ward!” they all ex­claimed. “You will not go with us, then?” said Gle­nar­van to the CAT­APEZ.

“I am the mule­teer,” was the re­ply.

“As you please,” said Gle­nar­van.

“We can do with­out him,” said Pa­ganel. “On the oth­er side we shall get back in­to the road to An­tu­co, and I’m quite sure I’ll lead you to the foot of the moun­tain as straight as the best guide in the Cordilleras.”

Ac­cord­ing­ly, Gle­nar­van set­tled ac­counts with the CAT­APEZ, and bade farewell to him and his PE­ONS and mules. The arms and in­stru­ments, and a small stock of pro­vi­sions were di­vid­ed among the sev­en trav­el­ers, and it was unan­imous­ly agreed that the as­cent should recom­mence at once, and, if nec­es­sary, should con­tin­ue part of the night. There was a very steep wind­ing path on the left, which the mules nev­er would have at­tempt­ed. It was toil­some work, but af­ter two hours’ ex­er­tion, and a great deal of round­about climb­ing, the lit­tle par­ty found them­selves once more in the pass of An­tu­co.

They were not far now from the high­est peak of the Cordilleras, but there was not the slight­est trace of any beat­en path. The en­tire re­gion had been over­turned by re­cent shocks of earth­quake, and all they could do was to keep on climb­ing high­er and high­er. Pa­ganel was rather dis­con­cert­ed at find­ing no way out to the oth­er side of the chain, and laid his ac­count with hav­ing to un­der­go great fa­tigue be­fore the top­most peaks of the An­des could be reached, for their mean height is be­tween eleven and twelve thou­sand six hun­dred feet. For­tu­nate­ly the weath­er was calm and the sky clear, in ad­di­tion to the sea­son be­ing fa­vor­able, but in Win­ter, from May to Oc­to­ber, such an as­cent would have been im­prac­ti­ca­ble. The in­tense cold quick­ly kills trav­el­ers, and those who even man­age to hold out against it fall vic­tims to the vi­olence of the TEM­PO­RALES, a sort of hur­ri­cane pe­cu­liar to those re­gions, which year­ly fills the abysses of the Cordilleras with dead bod­ies.

They went on toil­ing steadi­ly up­ward all night, hoist­ing them­selves up to al­most in­ac­ces­si­ble plateaux, and leap­ing over broad, deep crevass­es. They had no ropes, but arms linked in arms sup­plied the lack, and shoul­ders served for lad­ders. The strength of Mul­rady and the dex­ter­ity of Wil­son were taxed heav­ily now. These two brave Scots mul­ti­plied them­selves, so to speak. Many a time, but for their de­vo­tion and courage the small band could not have gone on. Gle­nar­van nev­er lost sight of young Robert, for his age and vi­vac­ity made him im­pru­dent. Pa­ganel was a true French­man in his im­petu­ous ar­dor, and hur­ried fu­ri­ous­ly along. The Ma­jor, on the con­trary, on­ly went as quick as was nec­es­sary, nei­ther more nor less, climb­ing with­out the least ap­par­ent ex­er­tion. Per­haps he hard­ly knew, in­deed, that he was climb­ing at all, or per­haps he fan­cied he was de­scend­ing.

The whole as­pect of the re­gion had now com­plete­ly changed. Huge blocks of glit­ter­ing ice, of a bluish tint on some of the de­cliv­ities, stood up on all sides, re­flect­ing the ear­ly light of morn. The as­cent be­came very per­ilous. They were obliged to re­con­noi­ter care­ful­ly be­fore mak­ing a sin­gle step, on ac­count of the crevass­es. Wil­son took the lead, and tried the ground with his feet. His com­pan­ions fol­lowed ex­act­ly in his foot­prints, low­er­ing their voic­es to a whis­per, as the least sound would dis­turb the cur­rents of air, and might cause the fall of the mass­es of snow sus­pend­ed in the air sev­en or eight hun­dred feet above their heads.

They had come now to the re­gion of shrubs and bush­es, which, high­er still, gave place to grass­es and cac­ti. At 11,000 feet all trace of veg­eta­tion had dis­ap­peared. They had on­ly stopped once, to rest and snatch a hur­ried meal to

V. IV Verne re­cruit their strength. With su­per­hu­man courage, the as­cent was then re­sumed amid in­creas­ing dan­gers and dif­fi­cul­ties. They were forced to be­stride sharp peaks and leap over chasms so deep that they did not dare to look down them. In many places wood­en cross­es marked the scene of some great catas­tro­phes.

About two o’clock they came to an im­mense bar­ren plain, with­out a sign of veg­eta­tion. The air was dry and the sky un­cloud­ed blue. At this el­eva­tion rain is un­known, and va­pors on­ly con­dense in­to snow or hail. Here and there peaks of por­phyry or basalt pierced through the white wind­ing-​sheet like the bones of a skele­ton; and at in­ter­vals frag­ments of quartz or gneiss, loos­ened by the ac­tion of the air, fell down with a faint, dull sound, which in a denser at­mo­sphere would have been al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble.

How­ev­er, in spite of their courage, the strength of the lit­tle band was giv­ing way. Gle­nar­van re­gret­ted they had gone so far in­to the in­te­ri­or of the moun­tain when he saw how ex­haust­ed his men had be­come. Young Robert held out man­ful­ly, but he could not go much far­ther.

At three o’clock Gle­nar­van stopped and said:

“We must rest.”

He knew if he did not him­self pro­pose it, no one else would.

“Rest?” re­joined Pa­ganel; “we have no place of shel­ter.”

“It is ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary, how­ev­er, if it were on­ly for Robert.”

“No, no,” said the coura­geous lad; “I can still walk; don’t stop.”

“You shall be car­ried, my boy; but we must get to the oth­er side of the Cordilleras, cost what it may. There we may per­haps find some hut to cov­er us. All I ask is a two hours’ longer march.”

“Are you all of the same opin­ion?” said Gle­nar­van.

“Yes,” was the unan­imous re­ply: and Mul­rady added, “I’ll car­ry the boy.”

The march east­ward was forth­with re­sumed. They had a fright­ful height to climb yet to gain the top­most peaks. The rar­efac­tion of the at­mo­sphere pro­duced that painful op­pres­sion known by the name of PUNA. Drops of blood stood on the gums and lips, and res­pi­ra­tion be­came hur­ried and dif­fi­cult. How­ev­er strong the will of these brave men might be, the time came at last when their phys­ical pow­ers failed, and ver­ti­go, that ter­ri­ble mal­ady in the moun­tains, de­stroyed not on­ly their bod­ily strength but their moral en­er­gy. Falls be­came fre­quent, and those who fell could not rise again, but dragged them­selves along on their knees.

But just as ex­haus­tion was about to make short work of any fur­ther as­cent, and Gle­nar­van’s heart be­gan to sink as he thought of the snow ly­ing far as the eye could reach, and of the in­tense cold, and saw the shad­ow of night fast over­spread­ing the des­olate peaks, and knew they had not a roof to shel­ter them, sud­den­ly the Ma­jor stopped and said, in a calm voice, “A hut!”