“Yes.”
“Then off.”
The surface of the snow was like glass with the night’s frost, and the stone began to glide at once, just as the first gleams of the rising sun lit up the spot where such terrible hours had been spent; and the next minute, with a strange, metallic, hissing sound, the pair were gliding down the slope at a steady rate, which Gedge felt it in his power to increase to a wild rush by raising his heels from the surface upon which they ran.
“All right, sir?”
“Yes, all right. Go on.”
“Ain’t it wonderful, sir? Why, we can get down to the track long before any of them can get up to it.”
“Stop, then, to let them reach it and retreat.”
“If you order me to, sir, I will; but they’ll never try to stop us; they’ll scatter to see us coming down like this. Why, in less than an hour, sir, we shall be all among the Ghoorkha lads, and then hoorray for the fort!”
“Go on, then. I trust to you.”
“Right, sir,” cried Gedge excitedly; and in spite of several risks of overturning, he steered the novel toboggan sledge down the gigantic slide, with the wild, metallic, hissing sound rising and falling on the keen wind that fanned their cheeks, and a glistening prismatic, icy dust rising behind them like a snaky cloud.