No wonder the hotel held its breath! I was standing entranced myself, an outpost of the audience underneath the windows, whose fringe I could just see round the uttermost angle of the hotel, when Bob Evers ran down the steps, and came toward me in such guise that I could not swear to him till the last yard.
"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly.

"I'm just off!" "Off where ?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb, and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night.
"Up the Matterhorn!" "At this time of night ?" "It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet.

I don't want any fuss or advice.

I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me just below by the shoemaker's hut.

I told you I was on their tracks.
Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are so tremendously full up.