“Oh, yes, herr; and the sooner the better, for I am wet, and it is so cold: I am nearly benumbed.”
“Here, let’s help you,” cried Dale, and he and Saxe passed their arms under the poor fellow’s shoulders and raised him up.
“Thank you—thank you!” he said. “It is the cold that makes me so helpless. Let me sit on that block for a few minutes while you coil up the ropes.”
This was done; and then the question arose—whereabouts on the glacier were they?
“I think I know,” said the guide, rather feebly.
“Yes: but you are not fit to move,” said Saxe.
“I must move, young herr,” replied the man sadly. “To stay as I am means a terrible illness, perhaps death. But I shall fight it down. The movement will send life into me. Now, have you the axes? Please to give me mine, and I shall creep along. We must get to the tent and a fire somehow.”
“But you cannot lead, Melchior.”
“I will lead, herr,” he replied, as he rested on Saxe’s shoulder. “Here in the mountains man must exert himself if he wishes to live. This way.”
To the astonishment of both he used his ice-axe as a walking-stick, holding it by the steel head, striking the spike at the end of the handle into the slippery floor, and walking slowly but steadily on along the edge of the crevasse.