This was not done quickly or easily. Jock was almost sick with the pain of the effort, and the bruise looked serious. Armine tried to make him comfortable, and set out, as he thought, in the right direction, but he had hardly gone twenty steps before he came to a sudden standstill with an emphatic “I say!” then came back repeating “I say, Jock, we are close upon the glacier; I was as near as possible going down into an awful blue crack!”
“That’s why it’s getting so cold,” said Jock. “Here, Chick, come and warm me. Well, Armie, why ain’t you off?”
“Yes,” said Armine, with a quiver in his voice, “if I keep down by the side of the glacier, I suppose I must come to the Daubensee in time.”
“What! Have we lost the way?” said Jock, beginning to look alarmed.
“There’s no doubt of that,” said Armine, “and what’s worse, that fog is coming up; but I’ve got my little compass here, and if I keep to the south-west, and down, I must strike the lake somewhere. Goodbye, Jock.”
He looked white and braced up for the effort. Jock caught hold of him. “Don’t leave me, Armie,” he said; “you can’t—you’ll fall into one of those crevasses.”
“You’d better let me go before the fog gets worse,” said Armine.
“I say you can’t; it’s not fit for a little chap like you. If you fell it would be ever so much worse for us both.”
“I know! But it is the less risk,” said Armine, gravely.
“I tell you, Armie, I can’t have you go. Mother will send out for us, and we can make no end of a row together. There’s a much better chance that way than alone. Don’t go, I say—”