FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   >>   >|  
me quiet voice. On that broad open plateau both men spoke indeed as though they were in a sick chamber. "While you were away, monsieur, three men without food sat through a night on a steep ice-sheltered ice-slope behind us, high up on the Aiguille du Plan, as high up as the rocks of the Blaitiere. And not one of them came to any harm." "I know. I read of it," said Chayne, but he gathered little comfort from the argument. Michel fumbled in his pocket and drew out a pipe. "You do not smoke any more?" he asked. "It is a good thing to smoke." "I had forgotten," said Chayne. He filled his pipe and then took a fuse from his match-box. "No, don't waste it," cried Michel quickly before he could strike it. "I remember your fuses, monsieur." Michel struck a sulphur match and held it as it spluttered, and frizzled, in the hollow of his great hands. The flame burnt up. He held it first to Chayne's pipe-bowl and then to his own; and for a moment his face was lit with the red glow. Its age thus revealed, and framed in the darkness, shocked Chayne, even at this moment, more than it had done on the platform at Chamonix. Not merely were its deep lines shown up, but all the old humor and alertness had gone. The face had grown mask-like and spiritless. Then the match went out. Chayne leaned upon the rail and looked downward. A long way below him, in the clear darkness of the valley the lights of Chamonix shone bright and very small. Chayne had never seen them before so straight beneath him. As he looked he began to notice them; as he noticed them, more and more they took a definite shape. He rose upright, and pointing downward with one hand he said in a whisper, a whisper of awe-- "Do you see, Michel? Do you see?" The great main thoroughfare ran in a straight line eastward through the town, and, across it, intersecting it at the little square where the guides gather of an evening, lay the other broad straight road from the church across the river. Along those two roads the lights burned most brightly, and thus there had emerged before Chayne's eyes a great golden cross. It grew clearer and clearer as he looked; he looked away and then back again, and now it leapt to view, he could not hide it from his sight, a great cross of light lying upon the dark bosom of the valley. "Do you see, Michel?" "Yes." The answer came back very steadily. "But so it was last night and last year. Those three men on the Plan had it be
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Chayne

 

Michel

 

looked

 

straight

 
moment
 

lights

 

valley

 

whisper

 

clearer

 

downward


Chamonix
 

darkness

 
monsieur
 
pointing
 

plateau

 

upright

 
definite
 

chamber

 
eastward
 
thoroughfare

noticed

 

bright

 

beneath

 

notice

 
guides
 
steadily
 

answer

 

golden

 

church

 

evening


square

 
gather
 

brightly

 

emerged

 

burned

 
intersecting
 

quickly

 

strike

 
spluttered
 

frizzled


hollow

 

sulphur

 

struck

 
remember
 

Aiguille

 

pocket

 

fumbled

 

comfort

 

argument

 

forgotten