Lor Khan, who came behind me on the rope, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely; of course he had never been in such a position before, but these Chilas tribesmen are famous fellows. What Swiss peasant, whilst making his first trial of the big snow peaks and the ice, would have dared to follow in such a place, and that, too, with only skins soaked through by the melting snow wrapped round his feet? Lor Khan never hesitated for a moment; when I turned and pointed downwards he only grinned, and looked as if he were in the habit of walking on ice slopes every day of his life. We were soon all in a line across this ice face, and whilst I was cutting one of Mummery's steps deeper to make it safer for our Chilas shikari, I noticed that the rope was hanging down in a great loop between Lor Khan and myself. At once I cried out to him not to move again till it was absolutely tight between us, and always to keep it so for the future. In the East we found that people were accustomed to obey instantly without asking questions. What the sahib said was law, at least so long as the sahib was there himself to enforce obedience. Consequently as I moved onward the rope soon became taut, and fortunately remained in that condition. Shortly after this Mummery turned upwards and slightly to his right, cutting nearly straight up the face, owing to some bad snow which barred our way. Just as I began the ascent of this staircase I heard a startled exclamation below. Instinctively I struck the pick of my axe deep into the ice, and at the same moment the whole of the weight of the unfortunate Lor Khan came on Ragobir and on me with the full force of a drop of some five to six feet. He had slipped out of one of the steps, and hung with his face to the glistening ice, whilst under him the thin coating of snow peeled off the face of the slope in great and ever-widening masses, gathering in volume as it plunged headlong down the mountain-side, finally to disappear over the cliffs thousands of feet below. For the time being I was fascinated by the descending avalanche, my whole mind being occupied with but this one thought, that if Lor Khan began to struggle and jerk at the rope I should without a doubt be pulled out of my steps. My fears proved groundless. Although Lor Khan had lost his footing he never lost either his head or his axe, and was just able to reach with his hand one of the steps out of which he had fallen. After Mummery had made himself quite firm above me I found myself, with the help of Ragobir, who was last on the rope, just able to haul up our Chilas shikari to a step which he had manfully cut for himself. It was, however, a very unpleasant experience; if the fall had been ten feet instead of six, I should never have been able to have borne the strain, and Lor Khan would have fallen considerably more than that if he had not been opportunely warned that he must keep the rope tight between himself and me.