“Creep close to me, then,” he said. “We shall keep each other warm.”
We sat like that for hours, and still the fog kept as dense as ever, only that overhead there was a faint light, which grew stronger and then died out over and over again. The stillness was awful, but I had a companion, and that made my position less painful. He would not talk, though as a rule he was very bright and chatty; now he would only say, “Wait and see;” and we waited.
The change came, after those long terrible hours of anxiety, like magic. One moment it was thick darkness; the next I felt, as it were, a feather brush across my cheek.
“Did you feel that?” I said quickly.
“Feel what, Cob?”
“Something breathing against us?”
“No—yes!” he cried joyfully. “It was the wind.”
The same touch came again, but stronger. There was light above our heads. I could dimly see my companion, and then a cloud that looked white and strange in the moonlight was gliding slowly away from us over what seemed to be a vast black chasm whose edge was only a few yards away.
It was wonderful how quickly that mist departed and went skimming away into the distance, as if a great curtain were being drawn, leaving the sky sparkling with stars and the moon shining bright and clear.
“You see now the danger from which you escaped?” said Uncle Bob with a shudder.