as most dangerously steep, and,
its termination being the fretted coping of the precipice to which I
have referred, if we slid downward we should shoot over this and be
dashed to pieces upon the ice below.[57] Simond, who had come to the
front to cross the crevasse, was now engaged in cutting steps, which he
made deep and large, so that they might serve us on our return. But the
listless strokes of his ax proclaimed his exhaustion; so I took the
implement out of his hands, and changed places with him. Step after step
was hewn, but the top of the Corridor appeared ever to recede from us.

Hirst was behind, unoccupied, and could thus turn his thoughts to the
peril of our position; he "felt" the angle on which we hung, and saw the
edge of the precipice, to which less than a quarter of a minute's slide
would carry us, and for the first time during the journey he grew giddy.
A cigar which he lighted for the purpose tranquilized him.

I hewed sixty steps upon this slope, and each step had cost a minute, by
Hirst's watch. The Mur de la Cote was still before us, and on this the
guide-books informed us two or three hundred steps were sometimes found
necessary. If sixty steps cost an hour, what would be the cost of two
hundred? The question was disheartening in the extreme, for the time at
which we had calculated on reaching the summit was already passed, while
the chief difficulties remained unconquered. Having hewn our way along
the harder ice we reached snow. I again resorted to stamping to secure a
footing, and while thus engaged became, for the first time, aware of the
drain of force to which I was subjecting myself. The thought of being
absolutely exhausted had never occurred to me, and from first to last I
had taken no care to husband my strength. I always calculated that the
"will" would serve me even should the muscles fail, but I now found that
mechanical laws rule man in the long run; that no effort of will, no
power of spirit, can draw beyond a certain limit upon muscular force.
The soul, it is true, can stir the body to action, but its function is
to excite and apply force, and not to create it.

While stamping forward through the frozen crust I was compelled to pause
at short intervals; then would set out again apparently fresh, to
find, however, in a few minutes, that my strength was gone, and that
I required to rest once more. In this way I gained the summit of the
Corridor, when Hirst came to the front, and I fe