The People of the Mist

by H. Rider Haggard

Then followed the most terrible moments of all their struggle against the difficulties of this merciless place. The dwarf held fast above, and Leonard, ceasing to swing, lay with hands and legs outstretched on the face of the ice.

“Now, Baas,” said Otter, “be brave, and when I pull, do you wriggle forward.”

He tugged till the thin hide rope stretched, while Leonard clawed and kicked at the ice with his toes, knees, and disengaged hand.

Alas! it gave no hold—he might as well have tried to climb a dome of plate glass at an angle of sixty degrees.

“Rest awhile, Baas,” said the dwarf, whose breath was coming in great sobs, “then make a little nick in the ice with the blade of the spear, and when next I pull, try to set some of your weight upon it.”

Leonard did as he was bid without speaking.

“Now,” said the dwarf, and with a push and a struggle Leonard was two feet higher up the incline. Again the process was repeated, and this time he got his left hand into the lowest of the two steps that Otter had hacked with the knife, and once more they paused for breath. A third effort, the fiercest of them all, a clasping of hands, and he was lying trembling like a frightened child above the glacier’s lip.

The ordeal was over, that danger was done with, but at what a cost! Leonard’s nerves were completely shattered, he could not stand, his face was bleeding, his nails were broken, and the bone of one knee was exposed by the friction of the ice, to say nothing of the shock to the system and the bruises which he had received when he was hurled from the stone. Otter’s condition was a little better, but his hands were cut by the rope and he was utterly exhausted with toil and the strain of suspense. Indeed, of the three Juanna had come off by far the best, for she swooned at the very beginning of the passage of the bridge, and when they were jerked from the stone, being lighter than Leonard, she had fallen upon him. Moreover, the thick goat-skin cloak which was wrapped about her had protected her from all hurt beyond a few trifling cuts and bruises. Of their horrible position when they were hanging to the spear, and the rest of the adventure, including the death of Soa, she knew nothing, and it was well for her reason that this was so.

“Otter,” murmured Leonard in a shaking voice, “have you lost that gourd of spirit?”

“No, Baas, it is safe.”