He vanished! There was a violent wrench upon the rope hitched around my waist, and I was jerked from my feet, clawing with all my limbs for a hold to stay me. Small stones and ice chunks rattled down as I slid forward. I felt one leg pass over a declivity, sensed that my right arm was beating space. Then some new force was exerted behind me. My descent was arrested. I sprawled half over the precipice, but I did not fall further, as I normally should have done.
"Who is there?" gasped Corlaer out of the fog.
"'Tis I! Ormerod!" I answered. "Tawannears is over the brink."
"Is he dead?"
I mustered courage to peer into a blue-green caldron of writhing mist.
"Tawannears!" I shouted in an oddly cracked voice.
"Yes, brother," he answered calmly, surprisingly near. "I am here."
"Are you hurt?"
"No. I am holding to the rope. I have one foot on an ice-shelf."
"I hear," came Corlaer's voice behind me. "Now, you do what I say. I pull—like——! First comes Ormerod. He lets oudt der rope as he comes. When he is safe, we pull togedder for Tawannears. Readty? Oop!"