He danced on, bending and bowing and stretching up his arms to the stars, stamping and kicking up his feet, and whirling about and around, on and on, while the watchers shivered and held themselves in their blankets.
And on he went; and on, till they thought he would fall down from exhaustion, there, outside the little hut built between the rocks and the crags whose tops pierced the field of stars.
It seemed to them that hours were passing, while they were shivering themselves into insensibility, and first Teresa, then the men, retreated into the hut for warmth, from where they saw Ben moving about in the starlight through the chinks and heard his hymn to the heavens.
Later he was quiet, and they went out and saw him standing with his arms outstretched and his head back, silent, looking up, and up. The crackling brilliance overhead had moved its patterns, and star shadows had reached across the bare space to where Ben stood. He was in a trance, or an ecstasy, and then at last he let his arms fall, and stood still and began to shiver. Teresa brought him inside, and put blankets around him. He sat where she had arranged him, staring into the remnants of the fire, and he began his low rough singing again. He was far from them, and from consciousness of them.
They spoke in low voices not to rouse him from this state he was in. They did not sleep, but kept a vigil, with him.
In the morning, when they opened the door, the hut was still in shadow, while the sky spread gold and pink among the peaks.
They warmed themselves with hot tea, and walked about outside the hut to get the stiffness out of them. Not Ben, he was lost in his dream, whatever it was: they did not know. They left everything in the hut, and walked off in single file on a narrow path with a tall black cliff on one side, and on the other a slope of black rock down to a rocky valley far below them. Above them floated a condor marking their progress along the slippery path. After a couple of hours Alfredo said, 'It's here. I remember it.' He struck off sharp to the right through a crack in the cliff, where they had to creep and clamber and support themselves on tiny ledges and protuberances, and then they emerged into a big flat space, with crags towering all around, and, in front of them, a tall rock face. It was now about ten in the morning. The sunlight was on the other side of the barrier of rock they had come through, and above there was a bright sunlit sky. Alfredo was moving about, along the base of the rock face, stood nearer ... moved back ... went forward again, shook his head ... shifted to this side, and then to the other, saying, 'No, not here, yes, it's here,' went off, came back, and suddenly a shaft of light came weakly over a peak, but immediately strengthened, and reached the rock face at its edge.
At once a figure stood out from the black shining depths of the rock, where, deeply immersed in the shine, were other figures, that needed the sunlight to bring them forth. The shaft of light became a flood and there they all were, a gallery of pictures, Ben's people. He had taken a step forward, then another, stood in front of the rock, as the three stayed behind him, letting him take possession. Now the sun was hard and full on the rock face, and it was crammed with pictures, at least forty of them, and several were like Ben, except for what they wore. Were those strips of bark? Skins? They were real clothes, of supple stuff that fell in folds, and were belted at their middles and held on their shoulders by metal clasps. The clothes were coloured, not merely grey and brown, but reddish, blue, green. The hair of these people fell to their shoulders, longer than Ben's now, and they were big-chested. They had beards, but not all, no those must be the females, the ones without beards; and they were smaller, and more delicately built, though they stood solidly on their feet. They were not carrying weapons, though several held what seemed to be some kind of musical instrument. Ben stared. What he was thinking now the others did not know, but their hearts were beating, certainly not only from the altitude, but from fear of what he might be feeling. Ben stood forward, and stroked the outline of a female who seemed to be smiling at him. Then he bent forward and nuzzled at her, rubbing his beard over her, and letting out short cries that were greetings.
The silence then was dreadful, dreadful. Their breathing, harsh and laboured, emphasised it.
Ben's back was still turned to the others. And there he stood stroking that other, who smiled back at him from the depths of the black rock. And now the sunlight was thinning, slipping and sliding across the rock, and as it did, one after another the people disappeared. Soon, only a few were left, on the very edge, and Ben stood touching, stroking, the female creature. Then the sun left her and they heard his howl, as he flung himself against the rock and crouched there.
The sun had lifted itself away from the scene. The pictures had gone. Past Ben's crouching figure they could see, if they stared hard enough into the shiny rock, the faintest outlines of what had been so strong and alive a short time before. Easy to see how people could walk past that rock face and see nothing nothing unless they were lucky enough to catch just that right moment when the sun fell at a certain angle.
Ben straightened himself, his back still to them: he was taking his time turning to face them. He had been betrayed so dreadfully by these three who called themselves his friends so he must feel; and they were afraid of what they would see. But he didn't turn, seemed to hang there by the rock face, one fist resting on it. Then he did turn himself about, with an effort: they could see it was hard for him. He seemed smaller than he had been, a poor beast. His eyes did not accuse them: he was not looking at them.
Teresa dared to go to him and put her arm about him, but he did not feel it, or know she was there. He stumbled along beside her on the long walk back to the hut. On the path that had the precipice below it he did stop a moment and look down, but went on at a touch from Teresa. In the hut they put more fuel on the little fire and made tea arid offered him some. He did not see them. Then and it was so sudden they at first could not move he left them and went bounding back along the path they had just come from. A silence. Then Teresa understood, and was about to run after him, but Alfredo put his arm around her and said, 'Teresa, leave him.'
They heard a cry, and a slide of small stones, and silence.
They slowly got up, slowly followed him. They made their way to where the precipice fell away from the path. There was Ben, far below, a pile of coloured clothing. His yellow hair was like a tuft of mountain grass.
The three teetered there on the edge, peering over, their arms stretched out to hold on to each other, for balance. A gust of wind blew from an edge of blue air where the path turned a corner, just ahead, strong enough to make them move back on this path which was not much more than a ledge over space, to stand with their backs to the rock. Now they could not see Ben, only the other side of the valley, rising up into cliffs and crags.
Alfredo said, 'When we get back to the telephone at the hotel, we can ring Professor Gaumlach and tell him what has happened.'
'I shall ring,' said Jose. 'He won't know who I am. I won't mention you or Teresa.'
'He will be angry with you,' said Alfredo. 'You can tell him that even an animal has the right to commit suicide.'
'It will take them a day or two to get around into the valley they will need mules,' said Jose.
Alfredo said, 'The condors won't leave much of him.'
And there was a condor. It appeared from over the mountain behind them, and floated down past them, and circled over the valley. They could see the sun shining on its back.
'Never mind,' said Jose. 'They can know about a whole person from just a little bit of finger bone.'
'They will want to know what he was doing up here,' said Alfredo.
'Are you going to show them the rock pictures?' asked Jose. 'Let them find the pictures for themselves,' said Alfredo. Another condor was dropping from the mountain peaks across the valley.
Teresa had not contributed to this discussion. Jose said, 'Teresa, you are silly to cry. It's a good thing, what Ben did.'
Alfredo said, 'But Teresa knows that.'
Teresa had not contributed to this discussion. Jose said, 'Teresa, you are silly to cry. It's a good thing, what Ben did.'
Alfredo said, 'But Teresa knows that.'
'Yes,' said Teresa. And added, 'And I know we are pleased that he is dead and we don't have to think about him.'