For a few moments Dale and Saxe knelt together there, with their hearts
throbbing wildly at their discovery. There was a bewildering train of
thoughts, too, running through their minds, as to how the poor fellow
could have got there; and Saxe could only find bottom in one idea--that
they had been confusedly wandering about, returning another way, till
they had accidentally hit upon a further development of the great
crevasse into which the guide had fallen.
All this was momentary, and then Dale was speaking.
"He must be a long way off to the right here, cutting his way up, and
the ice conducted the sound. Come,--carefully. It would be terrible if
you slipped."
"I sha'n't slip!" cried Saxe firmly, and he followed on.
"Ahoy!" shouted Dale. "Where are you?"
"Here!" came from the right still, but apparently from the other side,
the voice sounding hollow and strange.
Dale caught Saxe's arm.
"Are we on the wrong side of the crevasse!" he muttered. But he went on
for another twenty yards and called.
The answer still came from the right, but not from the opposite side,
the former effect being simply reverberation. Another thirty yards or
so brought them to where the hollow-sounding voice seemed to come up
from straight below them; and they lay down to speak.
"Don't ask questions about how he came there. Let me speak only,"
whispered Dale. "Where are you?" he shouted.
"Nearly below you, herr," came up feebly. "So cold and faint."
"Hold on," shouted Dale. "Now, Saxe, the ball of string and the
lanthorn. Light it quickly."
The boy's hands trembled so that he could hardly obey, and two matches
were spoiled by the touch of his wet fingers before the lamp burned
bright and clear.
Meanwhile Dale had been securing the lanthorn to the end of the string.
"Melchior," he shouted, "I'm sending you down the light."
His words were short and sharp, and now he lay down and began to lower
the lanthorn rapidly, its clear flame reflected from the ice wall, and
revealing bit by bit the horrors of the terrible gulf, with its
perpendicular walls.
Down, down, down went the lamp, till Saxe's heart sank with it, and with
a look of despair he watched it and that which it revealed,--for he
could see that it would be impossible for anyone to climb the ice wall,
and the lamp had gone down so far that it was beyond the reach of their
rope.
"Terribly deep down," said Dale, half aloud, as he watched the
descending lanthorn.
"Ah! I see him!" cried Saxe. "He is just below the light, on that
ledge. Yes, and the ice slopes down from there."
"Can you get it?" cried Dale loudly. "Not yet, herr," came up feebly.
"Lower."
"There is not much more string, Saxe," whispered Dale: "get the rope
ready."
But before this could be done the feeble voice from below cried, "Hold!"
and they could see, at a terrible depth, the lanthorn swinging, and then
there was the clink of metal against metal, and a horrible cry and a
jarring blow.
"He has fallen!" cried Saxe. "No: he has got hold, and is climbing
back."
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 crevasse 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 God'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.
"Keep on cutting," he said to Saxe. "No: a better idea. Pick a hole--
there!" He stamped his foot in the place he meant. "Small and deep, so
as to turn your axe into an anchor if we want its help. Work--hard!"
Saxe drove his axe down on to the ice with vigour, blow after blow
sending the tiny crystals flying, while he had to fight down the intense
desire to leave off and watch the rescue, as Dale began to lower the
noose he had made.
"Is it long enough?--is it long enough?" he muttered, as he rapidly
passed the rope through his hands, Saxe giving a side glance from time
to time as he picked away.
Down went the whole length of the guide's line, and the knot passed
Dale's hands, after which the weight was sufficient to draw down the new
rope, whose rings uncoiled rapidly, and, as their number grew fewer,
Saxe breathed hard, and he echoed Dale's words, "Will it be long
enough?"
The last coil but three--the last coil but two--the last coil but one--
the last coil; and Dale's nervous right hand closed upon the very end,
and he went close to the brink and looked down at the light.
"Can you reach it?" he shouted.