Part 20 (2/2)

His fingers touched the belt; to grasp it he must have another inch and a half, or two inches. He let himself down that distance. Oh! how easy it seemed to do so--and thrust his fingers beneath the belt. As he closed them round it, the rope parted and all the weight that it had borne came upon G.o.dfrey's arm!

How long did he support it, he often wondered afterwards. For ages it seemed. He felt as though his right arm was being torn from the socket, while the ice cut into the muscles of his left like active torture. He filled himself with air, blowing out his lower part so that its muscles might enable him to get some extra hold of the rough ground; he dug his toes deep into the icy snow. His hat fell from his head, rested for a moment in a ridiculous fas.h.i.+on upon the swinging body beneath, then floated off composedly into s.p.a.ce, the tall feather in it sticking upwards and fluttering a little. He heard voices approaching, and above them the shouts of the guide, though what these said conveyed no meaning to him. He must loose his hold and go too. No, he would not. He would not, although now he felt as though his shoulder-joint were dislocated, also that his left arm was slipping. He would die like a brave man--like a brave man. Surely this was death! He was gone--everything pa.s.sed away.

G.o.dfrey woke again to find himself lying upon a flat piece of snow.

Recollection came back to him with a pang, and he thought that he must have fallen.

Then he heard voices, and saw faces looking at him as through a mist, also he felt something in his mouth and throat, which seemed to burn them. One of the voices, it was that of the guide, said:

”Good, good! He finds himself, this young English hero. See, his eyes open; more cognac, it will make him happy, and prevent the shock. Never mind the other one; he is all right, the stupid.”

G.o.dfrey sat up and tried to lift his arm to thrust away the flask which he saw approaching him, but he could not.

”Take that burning stuff away, Karl, confound you,” he said.

Then Karl, a good honest fellow, who was on his knees beside him, threw his arms about him, and embraced him in a way that G.o.dfrey thought theatrical and unpleasant, while all the others, except the rescued man, who lay semi-comatose, set up a kind of paean of praise, like a Greek chorus.

”Oh! shut up!” said G.o.dfrey, ”if we waste so much time we shall never get to the top,” a remark at which they all burst out laughing.

”They talk of Providence on the Alps,” shouted Karl in stentorian tones, while he performed a kind of war-dance, ”but that's the kind of providence for me,” and he pointed to G.o.dfrey. ”Many things have I seen in my trade as guide, but never one like this. What? To cut the rope for the sake of Monsieur there,” and he pointed to number two, whose share in the great adventure was being overlooked, ”before giving himself to almost certain death for the sake of Monsieur with the weak heart, who had no business on a mountain; to stretch over the precipice as the line parted, and hold Monsieur with the weak heart for all that while, till I could get a noose round him--yes, to go on holding him after he himself was almost dead--without a mind! Good G.o.d! never has there been such a story in my lifetime on these Alps, or in that of my father before me.”

Then came the descent, G.o.dfrey supported on the shoulder of the stalwart Karl, who, full of delight at this great escape from tragedy, and at having a tale to tell which would last him for the rest of his life, ”jodelled” spontaneously at intervals in his best ”large-tip”

voice, and occasionally skipped about like a young camel, while ”Monsieur with the weak heart” was carried in a chair provided to bear elderly ladies up the lower slopes of the Alps.

Some swift-footed mountaineer had sped down to the village ahead of them and told all the story, with the result that when they reached the outskirts of the place, an excited crowd was waiting to greet them, including two local reporters for Swiss journals.

One of these, who contributed items of interest to the English press also, either by mistake, or in order to make his narrative more interesting, added to a fairly correct description of the incident, a statement that the person rescued by G.o.dfrey was a young lady. At least, so the story appeared in the London papers next morning, under the heading of ”Heroic Rescue on the Alps,” or in some instances of, ”A Young English Hero.”

Among the crowd was the Pasteur, who beamed at G.o.dfrey through his blue spectacles, but took no part in these excited demonstrations. When they were back at their hotel, and the doctor who examined G.o.dfrey, had announced that he was suffering from nothing except exhaustion and badly sprained muscles, he said simply:

”I do not compliment you, my dear boy, like those others, because you acted only as I should have expected of you in the conditions. Still, I am glad that in this case another was not added to my long list of disappointments.”

”_I_ didn't act at all, Pasteur,” blurted out G.o.dfrey. ”A voice, I thought it was Miss Ogilvy's, told me what to do, and I obeyed.”

The old gentleman smiled and shook his head, as he answered:

”It is ever thus, young Friend. When we wish to do good we hear a voice prompting us, which we think that of an angel, and when we wish to do evil, another voice, which we think that of a devil, but believe me, the lips that utter both of them are in our own hearts. The rest comes only from the excitement of the instant. There in our hearts the angel and the devil dwell, side by side, like the two figures in a village weather-clock, ready to appear, now one and now the other, as the breath of our nature blows them.”

”But I heard her,” said G.o.dfrey stubbornly.

”The excitement of the instant!” repeated the Pasteur blandly. ”Had I been so situated I am quite certain that I should have heard all the deceased whom I have ever known,” and he patted G.o.dfrey's dark hair with his long, thin hand, thanking G.o.d in his heart for the brave spirit which He had been pleased to give to this young man, who had grown so dear to one who lacked a son. Only this he did in silence, nor did he ever allude to the subject afterwards, except as a commonplace matter-of-course event.

Notwithstanding the ”jodellings” which continued outside his window to a late hour, and the bouquet of flowers which was sent to him by the wife of the mayor, who felt that a distinction had been conferred upon their village that would bring them many visitors in future seasons, and ought to be suitably acknowledged, G.o.dfrey soon dropped into a deep sleep. But in the middle of the night it pa.s.sed from him, and he awoke full of terrors. Now, for the first time, he understood what he had escaped, and how near he had been to lying, not in a comfortable bed, but a heap of splintered bones and mangled flesh at the foot of a precipice, whence, perhaps, it would have been impossible ever to recover his remains. In short, his nerves re-acted, and he felt anything but a hero, rather indeed, a coward among cowards. Nor did he wish ever to climb another Alp; the taste had quite departed from him.

To tell the truth, a full month went by before he was himself again, and during that month he was as timid as a kitten, and as careful of his personal safety as a well-to-do old lady unaccustomed to travel.

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