For a few moments Dale and Saxe knelt together there, with their hearts throbbing wildly at their discovery. There was a bewildering train of thoughts, too, running through their minds, as to how the poor fellow could have got there; and Saxe could only find bottom in one idea—that they had been confusedly wandering about, returning another way, till they had accidentally hit upon a further development of the great crevasse into which the guide had fallen.
All this was momentary, and then Dale was speaking.
“He must be a long way off to the right here, cutting his way up, and the ice conducted the sound. Come,—carefully. It would be terrible if you slipped.”
“I sha’n’t slip!” cried Saxe firmly, and he followed on.
“Ahoy!” shouted Dale. “Where are you?”
“Here!” came from the right still, but apparently from the other side, the voice sounding hollow and strange.
Dale caught Saxe’s arm.
“Are we on the wrong side of the crevasse!” he muttered. But he went on for another twenty yards and called.
The answer still came from the right, but not from the opposite side, the former effect being simply reverberation. Another thirty yards or so brought them to where the hollow-sounding voice seemed to come up from straight below them; and they lay down to speak.
“Don’t ask questions about how he came there. Let me speak only,” whispered Dale. “Where are you?” he shouted.