In spite of the ice and snow and the bitter, freezing wind I was hot enough now--so hot that my body was bathed in perspiration.
Placing the fingers of my left hand in a small crevice, I cut a little nick farther on, and thus, step by step, made my perilous way.
Half-way across I was seized by a fit of terror, and clung to the wall helplessly like a frightened child, not daring to move, hardly, indeed, to breathe.
Something had unnerved me; I scarcely knew what. There had been a rasping of ice, a sound as of slipping feet, a groan of anguish promptly suppressed, and I felt as if the angel of death had lightly brushed me with his spreading wings.
The sound of an unfamiliar voice brought me to my senses. A man was speaking, but it was not Szemere, the one who had up till now been my close attendant.
"Hold tight, sir. Szemere has gone over--missed his footing."
I shuddered to think of the poor fellow's awful fate, but, strangely enough, the knowledge of it restored my courage. I ceased to tremble, braced myself up, and cut another notch. Down below, the unequal fight was being waged in the pass. We could hear the roar of the heavy guns, the sharp, crisp rattle of the musketry, the shouts of the combatants, while we hung like a line of flies to the face of the cliffs.
At length, with every muscle strained, with aching limbs, with scratched face, and bleeding fingers, I cut the last notch, and stood in comparative safety.
The next man, a light, wiry fellow, he who had told me of Szemere's death, cut the notch deeper, and as he did so the axe slipped from his nerveless fingers and went clattering down the abyss.
The brown of his face turned to a greyish-white colour; his legs tottered; his teeth knocked together; his hold loosened; in another second he would be gone!