He staggered to his feet, still lurching against me, and began gingerly to press his limbs and ribs. He moaned eloquently as his fingers roamed about his battered bones, making fearful grimaces.
“Ribs nearly bashed in,” he remarked, “but no other damage that I can discover, bar bruises.”
“That’s all right. Now let’s hustle round and see if there’s any sort of way out. That stream over there must go somewhere, if there’s room to follow it. I can hear it tinkling away down some sort of channel.”
In the direction in which I pointed the sides of overhanging rock and glacier converged till they almost met, forming a low tunnel which struck further into the blackness. It was from this burrow that the sound of running water came.
Gerry looked at the dark entrance with much distaste.
“Ugh,” said he, “filthy and cold it’ll be. Don’t you think——”
Click, click, click, and he stopped his argument to stare up to where something clattered above our heads. Gently, invitingly, a flask pattered into view, sliding down the slopes of the ice-hill at the end of a string. It hopped and jigged away most suggestively. We both gave a tumultuous yell of welcome, and dashed at it. I seized it, opened it, and poured half its contents down Gerry’s throat before he could make any demur. Then I took a good pull at it myself, smacking my lips with intense enjoyment. We clutched the string and tugged at it lustily, and those above tugged gladsomely and heartily back. Then I found an old envelope and began to scribble on it, using a rifle-bullet for pencil.
“All right. Get a rope!” was the terse message I attached to the string, and we saw it flit upward when our pressure relaxed, watching it disappear into the blue shadows of the ice-roof with indescribable sensations of relief.
In a few seconds the yell of voices was borne down to us, faint as the chirp of a bird, but delightfully distinct, and we knew that our bulletin was received. Within a minute the flask dropped down for the second time—full too—and on it another bit of paper showed white and welcome. The inscription was—
“Have no rope long as this string. Parsons has gone down for another to splice. Hope all well.”—S.G.