Free The Apple Tree by Daphne du Maurier Page B

of water washed away down the mountain-side. One false move, and the current would have borne me away, tearing my hands to pieces as I sought for a grip among the stones.
    Gone was my exultation of the day before. I was no longer in the thrall of mountain fever but held instead by the equally well-remembered sense of fear. It had happened in the past, many a time, the coming of cloud. Nothing renders a man so helpless, unless he can recognise every inch of the way by which he has come, and so descend. But I had been young in those days, trained, and climbing fit. Now I was a middle-aged city dweller, alone on a mountain I had never climbed before, and I was scared.
    I sat down under the lea of a great boulder, away from the drifting cloud, and ate my lunch—the remainder of sandwiches packed at the valley inn—and waited. Then, still waiting, I got up and stamped about for warmth. The air was not penetrating yet but seeping cold, the moist chill cold that always comes with cloud.
    I had this one hope, that with the coming of darkness, and with a fall in temperature, the cloud would lift. I remembered it would be full moon, a great point to my advantage, for cloud rarely lingers at these times, but tends to break up and dissolve. I welcomed, therefore, the coming of a sharper cold into the atmosphere. The air was perceptibly keener, and looking out towards the south, from which direction the cloud had drifted all the day, I could now see some ten feet ahead. Below me it was still as thick as ever. A wall of impenetrable mist hid the descent. I went on waiting. Above me, always to the south, the distance that I could see increased from a dozen feet to fifteen, from fifteen to twenty. The cloud was cloud no longer, but vapour only, thin, and vanishing; and suddenly the whole contour of the mountain came into view, not the summit as yet, but the great jutting shoulder, leaning south, and beyond it my first glimpse of the sky.
    I looked at my watch again. It was a quarter to six. Night had fallen on Monte Verità.
    Vapour came again, obscuring that clear patch of sky that I had seen, and then it drifted, and the sky was there once more. I left my place of shelter where I had been all day. For the second time I was faced with a decision. To climb, or to descend. Above me, the way was clear. There was the shoulder of the mountain, described by Victor; I could even see the ridge along it running to the south, which was the way I should have taken twelve hours before. In two or three hours the moon would have risen and would give me all the light I needed to reach the rock-face of Monte Verità. I looked east, to the descent. The whole of it was hidden in the same wall of cloud. Until the cloud dissolved I should still be in the same position I had been all day, uncertain of direction, helpless in visibility that was never more than three feet.
    I decided to go on, and to climb to the summit of the mountain with my message.
    Now the cloud was beneath me my spirits revived. I studied the rough map drawn by Victor, and set out towards the southern shoulder. I was hungry, and would have given much to have back the sandwiches I had eaten at midday. A roll of bread was all that remained to me. That, and a packet of cigarettes. Cigarettes were not helpful to the wind, but at least they staved off the desire for food.
    Now I could see the twin peaks themselves, clear and stark against the sky. And a new excitement came tome, as I looked up at them, for I knew that when I had rounded the shoulder and had come to the southern face of the mountain, I should have reached my journey's end.
    I went on climbing; and I saw how the ridge narrowed and how the rock steepened, becoming more sheer as the southern slopes opened up to view, and then, over my shoulder, rose the first tip of the moon's great face, out of the misty vapour to the east. The sight of it stirred me to a new sense of isolation. It was as though I walked alone on the earth's rim,