“The ropes!” cried Saxe excitedly. “Melk has one; the other is hanging in the tent. Here, I’ll run back.”
“No,” said Dale; “I am stronger and more used to the work: I’ll go. You shout every now and then. Even if he does not answer you he may hear, and it will encourage him to know that we are near.”
“But hadn’t we better go back for help?”
“Before we could get it the poor fellow might perish from cold and exhaustion. Keep up your courage; I will not be a minute longer than I can help.”
He was hurrying along the upper side of the crevasse almost as he spoke, and then Saxe felt his blood turn cold as he saw his companion step back and leap over from the snow on to the ice at the other side, and begin to descend the glacier as rapidly as the rugged nature of the place would allow.
Saxe stood watching Dale for some time, and saw him turn twice to wave his hand, while he became more than ever impressed by the tiny size of the descending figure, showing as it did how vast were the precipices and blocks of ice, and how enormous the ice river on which he stood, must be.
Then, as he gazed, it seemed that another accident must have happened, for Dale suddenly disappeared as if swallowed up in another crevasse. But, as Saxe strained his eyes downward into the distance, he caught a further glimpse of his companion as he passed out from among some pyramids of ice, but only to disappear again. Then Saxe saw his head and shoulders lower down, and after an interval the top of his cap, and he was gone.
To keep from dwelling upon the horror of his position, alone there in that icy solitude, Saxe lay down again, with his face over the chasm, and hailed and shouted with all his might. But still there was no reply, and he rose up from the deep snow once more, and tried to catch sight of Dale; but he had gone. And now, in spite of his efforts to be strong and keep his head cool, the horror began to close him in like a mist. Melchior had fallen down that crevasse, and was killed. Dale had gone down to their camp to fetch the rope, but he was alone. He had no guide, and he might lose his way, or meet with an accident too, and fall as Melchior had fallen. Even if he only had a slip, it would be terrible, for he might lie somewhere helpless, and never be found.
In imagination, as he stood here, Saxe saw himself waiting for hours, perhaps for days, and no help coming. And as to returning, it seemed impossible to find his way farther than their camp; for below the glacier Melchior had led them through a perfect labyrinth of narrow chasms, which he had felt at the time it would be impossible to thread alone.
It required a powerful mental drag to tear his thoughts away from these wild wanderings to the present; and, determining to forget self, he tried hard to concentrate his mind, not upon his own position, but upon that of the poor fellow who lay somewhere below.