Old Ugly-Face by Talbot Mundy

That night's storm had one redeeming feature--lightning. Hail, rain, snow alternated. The wind blew with hurricane force, sometimes from two directions at once because it roared along converging valleys. Sometimes it blew Andrew against the cliff with such force that he couldn't move. At other times he clung to the cliff to keep from being blown off it--with one hand frozen; he had used his left glove to gag the giant monk. The lightning was like a barrage bursting in no-man's land. It made a swaying, fantastic horror of the thousand-foot drop into the ravine. But it did reveal the ledge.

There's a limit to what a human being can take in the way of punishment and still retain will power. There's a point at which quitting begins to look like common sense. Andrew came closer to quitting, that night, than he cared to confess, except to himself in secret. For one thing, he felt sure St. Malo's men would be keeping a lookout near the mouth of their cave. They weren't likely to trust Tom and Andrew's Tibetans to keep cover. On the other hand, they might even have overcome their own fear of storm devils and have crept out to take the cavern by surprise, grab the booty and run.