“Was I? Yes, I suppose so. I must have been. But I don’t know much. It was all darkness and snow, and—oh yes, I remember now! I did not dare to move much, because whenever I did stir I began to glide down as if I were going on for ever.”
“But don’t you remember, sir, any more than that?”
“No,” said Bracy, speaking with greater animation now. “As I told you, I must have been stunned by my terrible fall, and that saved me from a time of agony that would have driven me mad. As soon as it was light I must have begun moving in a mechanical way to try and escape from that terrible death-trap: but all that has been dream-like, and—and I feel as if I were still in a kind of nightmare. I am quite faint, too, and giddy with pain. Yes, I must lie down here in the sunshine for a bit. Don’t let me sleep long if I drop off.”
“No, sir; I won’t, sir,” replied Gedge, as Bracy sank to his elbow and then subsided with a restful sigh, lying prone upon the snow.
“He’s fainted! No, he ain’t; he’s going right off to sleep. Not let him sleep long? Yes, I will; I must, poor chap! It’s knocked half the sense out of him, just when he was done up, too. Not sleep? Why, that’s the doctor as’ll pull him round. All right, sir; you’re going to have my sheepskin too, and you ain’t going to be called till the sun’s going down, and after that we shall see.”
Ten minutes later Bracy was sleeping, carefully wrapped in Gedge’s poshtin, while the latter was eating heartily of the remains of his rations.
“And he might ha’ been dead, and me left alone!” said Gedge, speaking to himself. “My! how soon things change! Shall I have a bit more, or shan’t I! Yes; I can’t put my greatcoat on outside, so I must put some extra lining in.”