His large expressive eyes lighted with eagerness. “Can you do this for me? Can you give her to me?”
I clenched my hands until the nails dug into the palms with the intensity of my effort for composure. It was the crisis of my life.
“My God, you cannot? You will not? And you pledged your oath. I saved your life; and you are false to your word.” He said this rapidly, vehemently, fiercely. Then with a sudden change he flung himself into a chair and covered his face with his hands, crying: “God, God, what a coward I am!”
I resumed my seat and as I faced the sacrifice that was now demanded of me, the old scene flashed vividly into my thoughts.
On a treacherous slope of crumbling rubble not thirty feet from the edge of an Alpine abyss, dropping a thousand feet sheer to the rocks below, a young fellow lay on his back, sweat-stained and staring, heels and hands dug desperately into the yielding surface as he measured the inches and reckoned the moments between him and the death yawning just below him. Slip, slip, slip, an inch or two at a time, he slid. Clutch as he would with his bleeding fingers and strain as he did, he could not prevent himself from being carried down, down, down with slow but heart-sickening certainty.
Death seemed inevitable; and as it is better to die quickly than to linger with nerve-racking hopelessness, he had made up his mind to let himself go and get it over, when a cheery call came from above, and the light of hope was kindled once again in his beating heart.
At the hazard of his life another man launched himself on that death slide and, with a courage equalled only by his mountaineering skill, carried a rope to his friend and saved his life just as his feet reached the very brink of the abyss.
I was the clumsy fool who had stupidly jeopardized my life and Ladislas the friend who offered his to save me.
And now Volna was to be the price! He had called for it: had thrown in my teeth the pledge I had given; and had chided me for my unreadiness to redeem it. This the friend whom I had always deemed the type of honour and chivalry! Bargaining for the body of the woman he loved!
In the first bitter moment my soul rose in passionate rebellion against the sacrifice. Nothing in all my life had ever moved me so deeply. To make myself a party to the bargain was to do dishonour to Volna herself. What right had we to take this thing into our hands and settle her life for her? It was for her, not for us, to make a decision so vital to her happiness.