Part 72 (1/2)

”Why!--oh, how it hurts! You've left my legs in the hole! No,” he added, as he struggled into a sitting position and looked down,--”only my boots.”

”I'll bind some cloth round them directly, herr. We can get other boots.”

”But--I feel--just as if I had no legs at all,” said Saxe excitedly.

”Not broken, are they?”

”No, herr: only a little numbed with the cold and pressure. There, I am better now. I'll chafe them before I bind up your feet.”

”You couldn't get out my boots?”

”No, herr--not for many hours: we must not wait for that;” and he knelt down now, and after rapidly chafing the half-dead limbs to bring back the circulation, he took string from his pocket, cut off both sleeves of his jacket, and then cleverly tied the wrists, and drew them on to the boy's legs, where he bound them with the string, forming a pair of boots and stockings in one.

”Why, Melk, you've made me look like an Italian brigand,” cried Saxe pitifully, as he stood up and looked down at his cross-gartered legs.

”Oh! I can hardly stand. But now we are wasting time: let's find Mr Dale.”

”Yes,” said Melchior, drawing a long deep breath: ”let's try and find Mr Dale.”

”Which way shall we go?” said Saxe, painfully picking up his axe and looking hopelessly around over the white waste where the snow lay, now compressed into waves of ice, and looking like portions of a glacier.

There was no answer to his question, and he looked at the guide, who stood leaning upon his ice-axe.

”Well!” cried Saxe; and Melchior started and faced him. ”I was trying to think, herr,” he said. ”We were all separated at the first slip of the snow. I held on to you for a few moments, but you were s.n.a.t.c.hed from me, and I saw no more, till I found myself far below yonder. I had been buried twice; but the snow as it rolled over thrust me forth again, and I was able to struggle out.”

”Then you have no idea where Mr Dale can be?” Melchior shook his head sadly.

”It was a mistake, sir,” he said. ”I ought to have known better than to cross such a treacherous slope. I did know better, but I suffered myself to be overruled, and now in the face of all this terrible misfortune I feel helpless. What can one man do when great Nature fights against him as she does here?”

Saxe looked wildly round again, to see that before long it would be dusk, for the snow was fast turning grey, and the peaks alone were ruddy with the sinking sun.

The boy s.h.i.+vered from cold and nervous shock, as he gazed at the weird-looking rocks and the folded snow, and then, grasping at Melchior's arm, he said pitifully: ”Don't tell me you think he is buried.”

”No, herr,” cried the guide, rousing himself: ”I will not say that, for there is still hope. He may have been carried right away below us by the loose upper snow, which went on, while the lower part soon stopped by getting pressed together into ice. But it is impossible to say. We must do something; it will soon be dark, and you have no strength left now.”

”I have!” cried the boy excitedly; ”and I can help you now. Shout: perhaps he may be within hearing.”

The guide shrugged his shoulders and shook his head; but he gave forth a long, loud mountaineer's call, which was repeated plainly from far away above him.

Then again, and again, and again; but there were only the echoes to respond.

”Let's look about,” cried Saxe, in a voice which told of his despair; but even as he spoke the guide had started off after a few minutes'

consideration, and the boy followed up and up, painfully, slowly, slipping, climbing and drawing himself forward from time to time by driving the pick of his axe into the ice.

For there was very little snow to traverse here: by the slip it had been almost entirely turned into ice, and the difficulties of the climb so increased that from time to time Saxe had to stop utterly exhausted.

”Why are we going up here?” he said on one of these occasions.

”To get as near as I can guess to where we were when the snow-slide began, herr. Shall I go on alone?”

”No--no! don't leave me!” cried Saxe excitedly.