Part 45 (1/2)

Faintly as it was seen, it was plain enough to those who watched with throbbing pulses. The lanthorn had been beyond Melchior's reach, and as he lay there on a kind of shelf or fault in the ice, he had tried to hook the string toward him with his ice-axe, slipped, and would have gone headlong down lower, but for the mountaineer's instinctive effort to save himself by striking his axe-pick into the ice.

No one spoke, but every pulse was throbbing painfully as the man's actions were watched, down far beneath them, he seeming to be in the centre of a little halo of light, while everything around was pitchy black.

”He has got it,” muttered Saxe, after a painful pause; and then they heard the clink of the ice against the lanthorn, and saw the latter move, while directly after, from out of the silence below, there came the sound of a deeply drawn breath. ”Can you hold on there?” said Dale then, sharply. ”A little while, herr. I am cold, but hope will put life in me.” Dale waited a few minutes, and Saxe touched him imploringly. ”What shall we do?” he whispered. ”Shall I go for help?”

”No. Get your axe, and begin cutting some foothold for us: three or four good deep, long notches, about a yard apart. Begin six or eight feet away from the edge. We want purchase to pull him out.”

”But the rope--the rope!” cried Saxe. ”Do as I tell you.”

Saxe obeyed without a word, driving the pick-end into the ice, and making the chips fly in the grey light of evening, for the shadows were now falling fast; and as the lad worked and cut the deep groove, Dale bent over the creva.s.se and spoke.

”Better!” he said.

”Yes, herr: more life in me now.”

”Have you your rope?”

Saxe stopped to listen for the answer, and, though it was only a matter of moments, he suffered agonies of expectation before he heard the answer.

”Yes.”

”Take off the lanthorn and stand it by you, or fasten it to your belt.”

”Yes, herr.”

”Make fast your rope to the string, and let me draw it up.”

”It will not reach, herr.”

”I know. I have mine.”

There was a pause only broken by the chipping of the ice-axe, and then the voice came up again in a hollow whisper--

”Ready!”

”If it will only bear it,” muttered Dale, as he steadily drew upon the string, hand over hand, expecting moment by moment that it would part.

But it bore the weight of the rope well, and in a few minutes he was able to lift the coil over the edge on to the glacier.

Saxe heard him give a sigh of relief as he bent down and drew it away; but he turned back to the crack directly, and shouted down in slow, solemn words--

”Keep a good heart man, and if it is to be done we'll save you.”

”With G.o.d's help, herr,” came up; and the voice sounded to Saxe, as he toiled away, less despairing.

”Now!” cried Dale, speaking quickly and excitedly: ”pray with me, lad, that these two ropes together may be long enough. Quick! Out with your knife.”

Saxe obeyed, and stood ready while Dale rapidly joined the two ropes together; but, not content with his knot, he cut off a couple of pieces of string, and rapidly bound down the loose ends so that they should by no possibility slip through the loops.

This done, and Saxe once more cutting the grooves he was making more deeply, Dale rapidly ran Melchior's rope through his hands, and made a knot and slip-noose.