He was not sorry. Death was the easiest possible solution of all his difficulties. He had looked for it many times; but he was glad to think that on this day, at least, he had not sought it of his own free will. He thought of his mother—he could not call her otherwise in this last hour—he thought of the father and the brother who had been dear to him in this world, and would not, he believed, be less dear to him in the next; he thought of Angela, who would be a little sorry for him, and Hugo, whom he could no longer help out of his numerous difficulties. All these memories of his old home and friends flashed over his mind in less than a second of time. He even thought of the estate, and of the Miss Murray who would inherit it. And then he tried to say a little prayer, but could not fix his mind sufficiently to put any petition into words.
And at this point he became aware that he was descending less rapidly.
His head and arms were fortunately still free. By a side glance he saw that the snow at some distance before him had stopped sliding altogether. Then it ceased to move at a still higher point, until at the spot where he lay it also became motionless, although above him it was still rushing down as if to bury him in a living grave. He threw his hands up above his head, and made a furious effort to extricate himself before the snow should freeze around him. And in this effort he was more successful than he had even hoped to be. But the pressure of the snow upon him was so great that he thought at first that it would break his ribs. When the motion had ceased, however, this pressure became less powerful; by the help of his ice-axe he managed to free himself, and knew that he was as yet unhurt, if not yet safe.
He looked round for his friend and for the guides. They had all been roped together, but the rope had broken between himself and his companions. He saw only one prostrate form, and, at some little distance, the hand of a man protruding from the white waste of snow.
The thought of affording help to the other members of the party stimulated Brian to efforts which he would not, perhaps, have made on his own account. In a short time he was able to make his way to the man lying face downwards in the snow. He had already recognised him as one of the guides. It needed but a slight examination to convince him that this man was dead—not from suffocation or cold, but from the effects of a wound inflicted in the fall. The hand, sticking out of the snow belonged to the other guide; it was cold and stiff, and with all his efforts Brian could not succeed in extricating the body from the snow in which it was tightly wedged. Of the young Englishman, Gunston, and the other guide, there was absolutely nothing to be seen.
Brian turned sick and faint when the conviction was forced upon him that he would see his friend no more. His limbs failed him; he could not go on. He was born to misfortune, he said to himself; born to bring trouble and sorrow upon his companions and friends. Without him, Gunston would not, perhaps, have attempted this ascent. And how could he carry home to Gunston's family the story of his death?
After all, it was very unlikely that he would reach the bottom of the mountain in safety. He had no guide; he was utterly ignorant of the way. There were pitfalls without number in his path—crevasses, precipices, treacherous ice-bridges, and slippery, loose snow. He would struggle on until the end came, however; better to move, even towards death, than to lie down and perish miserably of cold.
It is said sometimes that providence keeps a special watch over children and drunken men; that is to say, that those who are absolutely incapable of caring for themselves do sometimes, by wonderful good fortune, escape the dangers into which sager persons are apt to fall. So it seemed with Brian Luttrell. For hours he struggled onwards, sore pressed by cold, and fatigue, and pain; but at last, long after night had fallen, he staggered into a little hamlet on the southern side of the mountain, footsore and fainting, indeed, but otherwise unharmed.
Nobody noticed his arrival very much. The villagers took him in, put him to bed, and gave him food and drink, but they did not seem to think that he was one of "the rich Englishmen" who sometimes visited their village, and they did not at all realise what he had done. To make the descent that Brian had done without a guide would have appeared to them little short of miraculous.
Brian had no opportunity of explaining to them how he had come. He was carried insensible into the one small inn that the village contained and put to bed, where he woke up delirious and quite unable to give any account of himself. When his mind was again clear, he remembered that it was his duty to tell the story of the accident on the mountain, but as soon as he uttered a few words on the subject he was met by an animated and circumstantial account of the affair in all its details. Two Englishmen, and two guides, and a porter had been crossing the mountain when the avalanche took place; a guide and a porter had been killed, and their bodies had been recovered. One Englishman had been killed also, and the other——