“Come up,” he said; “you know we can do no more by stopping thinking till one is almost wild with horror. Here, go up first.”
It was like a sharp order, but Dickenson felt that it came from his officer’s heart, and, with a shiver as much of horror as of cold from his drenched and clinging garments, he climbed to the next level and stood feeling half-stunned, and waiting while the sergeant climbed up and joined them with some rings of the rope upon his arm.
“May’s going to try and climb up by himself, sir,” said the sergeant in a low voice, “but I’ve made the rope fast round him to hold on by in case he slips. We don’t want another accident.”
The sight of the rope, and the sergeant’s words, stirred Dickenson into speaking again.
“James,” he said huskily, “don’t you think something more might be done by one of us going down to the water again?”
“No, sir,” replied the sergeant solemnly; “nothing, or I’d have been begging the captain to let me have another try long enough ago.”
“Yes, of course, of course,” said Dickenson warmly. “How are we to tell the colonel what has happened?”
The young officer relapsed into a dull, heavy fit of thinking, in which he saw, as if he were in a dream, the corporal helped out of the pit by means of the rope, and then go feebly along the cavern, to break down about half-way, when four men in two pairs crossed their wrists and, keeping step, bore him, lying horizontally, to the next ladder, up which he was assisted, after which he was borne once again by four more of the men; and as Drew’s comrade came last with the captain, the procession made him nearly break down with misery and despair.
For, what with the slow, regular pacing, the lights carried in front, and the appearance of the man being carried, there was a horrible suggestion in it all of a military funeral, and for the time being it seemed to him that they had recovered his comrade and were carrying him out to his grave.