Part 42 (1/2)
”Oh, don't ask!” Buza said, shaking his head. ”I will tell you afterwards; let's go now!”
”At once--in a wind like this and at night?”
”What's to be done? At least it gives us a chance.”
They hastily descended. Buza kept his eyes fixed straight in front of him, and dropped them when obliged to turn his head in the direction from which he came. They halted under the rock for a moment, in order to feed the dogs.
”Be sure to keep the wind on your left--always on your left--then wherever you go you will find land. There--round the coast by Pawal--is the easiest. We shall meet there, if only we can hold out till morning. But don't leave the sledge, or the storm will carry you and it away. And don't look behind you--Heaven defend it! For 'They'
don't like it, and will come after you,” he added significantly.
Once more they plunged into the blizzard. Once more the snow encircled their feet like hissing adders, the smarting sensation began again, and they drew their breath with difficulty. To complete the misfortune, twilight set in with the gale. The evening glow rested lower and lower on the rocks, while dark clouds rose steadily from the ”open sea,” where the country lies whence ”no one has ever come back.”
The tired dogs went unwillingly. Stefan was continually obliged to jump up and urge them on with his heavy ice-spear. When the evening glow had disappeared and the stars shone out, the gale, which seemed to have been only waiting for the signal, rose with such violence that, heedless of everything, the poor animals turned and ran before it. For a long way Stefan ploughed the snow with the sharp ice-spear, leaning his full weight against it, and hanging to the sledge, which rushed along, rocking and b.u.mping. At last, when they lighted on softer ground, he succeeded in stopping it. The dogs lay down at once.
Without letting the reins go out of his hand, he stood up and looked round. Before him rose a white, jagged ice-wall, and the light of the stars showed the clouds from the ”open sea” hanging over it. The coast had disappeared somewhere, and on all sides the country was white and flat.
”We have come a long way!... Jzef, are you cold? How you are s.h.i.+vering! Get up; can you eat something?”
”I am cold. Is it still far?”
”I don't know; the wind carried us away. Can you get up?”
Jzef was silent and did not stir.
Stefan shook the snow off him, turned the sledge and put the dogs in readiness, rousing them by his voice and by blows of the ice-spear. He skilfully did all this crawling on his knees, for when he stood up the wind blew him over. At last the dogs got up and limped on. He remembered that he ought to keep the wind on his left, but the sh.o.r.e along which he had been driving was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing but the white plain, the fury of the gale, and the stars in the sky. This wind seemed at times like some powerful winnowing-fan, violently driving them into the sea. When it struck the bed of the sledge, it lifted it up like a sheet of paper, and whatever it tore from it instantly disappeared. First they lost their bag of biscuits, then the cus.h.i.+ons; finally Jzef fell out and the storm carried him off like a bag of down. Stefan was horror-struck as he watched him helplessly waving his arms and trying in vain to stand upright.
Shouting despairingly, he turned the dogs in pursuit of his companion.
They rushed madly after the object rolling before them, and, fearing that they would tear him to pieces if they caught him up, Stefan cried:
”Face the wind! Flat against the ground!”
The wind carried his words, and Jzef evidently heard them, for he began to twist round until he gained a foothold in the snow. Stefan instantly struck the ice-spear into the ice with his full strength, so that the sledge shook.
”Crawl! I can't leave the dogs!” he called to Jzef.
The latter answered something and tried to get up, but the wind blew him over. In the end he managed to turn and face it.
”Crawl--crawl!” His companion's voice was borne to him in a whisper in the blasts of the snowstorm.
”Leave me--never mind me--I can't----” he answered, but almost before they had left his lips the gale blew his words in the opposite direction.
Finally, by a great effort, he began to crawl. All this took some time, and meanwhile a rumbling sound deeper than the storm was added to the roar of the wind. This came from the pack ice in the direction of the clouds hanging over the ”open sea.” Stefan heard it, but did not realize what it was until the ice was struck with a crash like thunder.
”The sea!” he cried.
Jzef was now near the sledge.
”Make haste!” he exclaimed, helping him into the sledge and strapping him to it. ”Do you hear? That's the sea! The storm is breaking up the ice behind us.”