“Back! Get back!”
The next instant Tom echoed his cry.
Simultaneously old Joe sprang forward and tried to turn the mamelukes, but they, maddened by fright, plunged forward.
From above, loosened from its foundation by the softened snow, a huge rock was bounding down upon them. Had the mamelukes stopped where they were they might have been saved. As it was, their plunge forward had brought them directly in the path of the great boulder. The destruction of the sled appeared certain.
And on the sled was Jack, crippled and unable to make a move to save himself from the impending doom.
CHAPTER XXXII—A PROVIDENTIAL MEAL.
Sandy’s nightmare had the effect of keeping him awake, save for spells of uneasy dozing, for the remainder of the night. It was one that he never forgot. There were times when he sank into a half waking stupor and allowed the fire to die low. Then, waking up, he would see crouching in the dark corners of the rift all sorts of fantastic shapes. At such times he hastened to hurl on more wood, and then, as the bright flames crackled up, the shadows fled away and he breathed more freely again.
Sometimes he would creep to the mouth of the rift and gaze down upon the snowy flat beneath. Each time he had a faint hope in his heart that the dark shapes that he knew were the watching wolves might have abandoned the siege and gone away.
But every time he was disappointed. Every fresh inspection showed him the dark forms massed beneath him. They were gazing upward at the glow of fire proceeding from the rift. Once Sandy hurled down a red-hot brand among them. With yelps and cries those whom it touched loped away from the main body, but they soon joined them again. As for the others, they never moved. There was something uncanny in this immobility. It expressed a calm determination to see the matter through to the bitter end, be that what it might, which was far from comforting to one in Sandy’s predicament.
At last, somehow, the night wore itself out. In the east, on one of his visits to the entrance of his hiding place, Sandy descried a faint gray light.