Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/193

on. My fingers in the snow-filled crack got more and more numb, till I began to wonder if I could possibly hold out much longer. I took a fleeting glance at the consequences of a fall; 30 feet below me was a snow arête, on which I might land, but the possibilities were against my stopping there, in which case I would end on some rocks 300 feet lower. Tentatively I removed one hand from the numbing snow, and rubbed it backwards and forwards on my serge skirt to restore the circulation, thrusting it back in the crack just as the other hand threatened to strike at doing double duty. Out of a jumble of thoughts one clear fact emerged: if I fell, Graham would be held responsible because he had not put on the rope. That he had not done so was at my own expressed wish, but no one would take any account of that even if they believed it. So I set my teeth and hung on. After what seemed an age I heard my guide moving down, and soon felt the rope passed round me and safely knotted. "Can you hang on while I get to a safe place?" he asked. "It's my fingers; they are frozen," I answered. "All right; stick them in my coat for a while, I can hold you." There we hung for perhaps ten minutes; the pain was sickening as the circulation slowly returned, but at last I told him to move and I hung back again in the old spot, while he hastily scrambled above me to a safe place; then I was more or less rather ingloriously hauled into the same position, and we sat down to recover. Graham was distinctly white about the face, and my fingers were stinging as if some one was pulling the nails off with hot pincers. We stayed where we were for perhaps half an hour, and drank hot tea and ate biscuits. Then, quite recovered, we set out again. I was surprised to find I was much steadier instead of more shaky after this unpleasant incident, and we proceeded without trouble for some time. Graham supplied the next excitement. I was waiting