What followed was blind confusion, in which Saxe struggled to fight back the snow, so that he could breathe, for the sense of suffocation was terrible. Then all at once the rapid gliding motion ceased, and in the darkness he felt as if he were being held tightly in some terrible embrace, which closed round him slowly and surely, till only his arms were at liberty, and with these he fought.
And now he found that he still held the ice-axe that had been his companion all day. It was stretched right out above him as far as he could reach, and, as he moved it, to his intense joy he could see a pale ray of light, one which increased as he moved the axe again, telling him that, though he was buried, the head of the axe was above the level of the snow.
His first efforts were to enlarge the hole that ran right up, very little larger than the handle of the axe, though the beating with his hand had formed quite a little hollow about his head.
“The snow has stopped, and I am only buried so deep,” he thought to himself, as the horrible feeling of panic began to subside. “If I can make that hole bigger, so as to be able to breathe, I ought soon to be able to creep out.”
He worked away, enlarging the hole a little; but he had to observe the greatest caution, for fear of filling the little perpendicular tunnel with the loose snow. It was but little, still it enabled him to breathe more freely; and as soon as he reached this pitch he began to strive to raise himself, first one leg and then the other, to force himself out to the surface.
And now the feeling of horror, which had passed away for the moment, returned, as he grasped the fact that the loose snow, in which he had been swept down, had been pressed together by the weight above it, till to his waist he felt as if he were enclosed in solid ice.
In spite of his position the perspiration broke out upon his forehead, and the wild horror which seized him nearly robbed him of his senses till the reaction came.
“Melchior and Mr Dale will seek for me and dig me out,” he thought. “I must listen till I hear them, and then shout.”
He grew calmer now, and listened; but all was perfectly still, and a chill struck through him as he asked himself a terrible question—
“Where were his companions!”