Those three last words came in a hoarse faint wail that sounded smothered and strange.
“Hush!” cried the other; “be a man. You are killing yourself. The air is not worse. I can breathe freely still.”
There was a horrible pause, and then, in pitiful tones: “I am fighting down this fearful feeling of cowardice, but it is so hard—so hard to die so soon. Not twenty yet, and the bright world and all its hopeful promise before one. How can you keep like that? Are you not afraid to die?”
“Yes,” came in a low, sad whisper; “but we must not die like this. Tell me you can breathe yet?”
“Yes,” came in the husky, grating tones; “better and better now I am still.”
“Then there is hope. We are on the track; others will come after a time, and we may be dug out.”
“Hah! I dare not think it. I say.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think those wretches have been caught by the fall as well?”
“If they were near they must have been.”