"Let us start at once then," exclaimed Philip.
The men were scanning the threatened storm in the north, but Dorothy's appearance, ready to go with them, silenced all objections. The snow was too soft to walk on easily, and the dogs whined as she bade them follow her, but they obeyed.
"Only pray 'at the storm 'ill keep off till we are home again," said the old shepherd, who could estimate the danger of their undertaking better than anyone else. Margaret watched them from her window with a wistful tenderness in her eyes, which were heavy and dim with her sleepless night. It was not possible for her to go.
The sun shone faintly, and Dorothy, by its aid and that of her compass, could direct the course of the little troop of men and dogs to the point where the cave was. She fancied she could recognize, under the softly undulating surface, the outlines of one ridge after another, and the hollows where frozen tarns were lying. The men shouted, and the dogs bayed with their deep voices, filling the moorland with their cry, but there was no sign as yet that any of the lost men heard them. How swiftly the precious moments were passing by! and how slow was the progress which they made! The leaden snowclouds were slowly climbing up the sky, and had already covered the dim disk of the low lying sun.
"I feel sure the cave is over there," said Dorothy.
They had reached a more rugged part of the upland, strewn with masses of rock, which stood half buried in heather in the summer. Deep snowdrifts had gathered on the side of each of them. The cave lay under a rock at the head of a long, narrow dell, scarcely more than a cleft in the earth, down which a burn ran in summer; and above the margin of this cleft stood a shape which, as they drew near to it, took the form of a cross.
They hastened to the ravine, and looked down into it. It was half filled with a deep drift, which almost hid the mouth of the cave, but the wind had blown away most of the snow from the old Calvary, which had weathered so many wintry tempests in the Ampezzo Valley. The arms of the cross were pure white, and the crucified form upon it was swathed in a white shroud. But the foot of it was buried in the snow, and a human form lay there almost hidden by it, with arms outstretched, as if to clasp the cross. Who could it be?
CHAPTER LIX.
FOUND.
For a few moments they all stood paralyzed and speechless on the edge of the ravine, gazing down at the death-like form. Dorothy and Philip clasped one another's hands with a grasp as if their own death was near. Then the dogs broke noisily on the dread silence, and as the clamor rang through the air, there came a shout from the cave; and Martin made his way through the drifted snow, and stood in the entrance, looking up to them with rough gestures of delight.