I must have been stunned by the concussion of the landslide. By a miracle I had not been struck.
"Help me! Help me!"
I tried to find the voice. I crawled three feet toward it, and the wall stopped me. But the voice was there. It came from under the wall. I felt about me in the darkness, and my hand touched something damp. I whipped it back in horror. It was the face of a man.
There was only the face. Where the body and limbs ought to have been was only rock. The face was on my side of a wall of rock, pinning down the body that lay outstretched beyond.
I recognized the voice now. It was that of Philippe Lacroix.
"Ah, mon Dieu! Help me! Help me!"
He continued to repeat the words in every conceivable tone, and his suffering was pitiable. I forgot my own troubles as I tried to aid him. All my efforts were vain. There were tons of rock above him, and under the inch or two of space where the rock rested above the ground I felt the edge of a burlap bag.
He had been pinned beneath the bags of earth and gold which he had prized so dearly; the golden rocks were grinding out his life. He was dying—and he could not take his treasures to that place to which he must go.
I felt one hand come through the tiny opening in the wall and grasp at me.
"Who is it?" he mumbled. "Is that you, Hewlett? For God's sake, kill me!"