We found everything in first-rate order (I had written ahead to light the furnace) and you should have seen Roger's face when he noticed the registers in the big room! Like a boy's when some good-natured trick has been played upon him. Suppose we had not had them nor the coal—it makes me cold now to think of it.
I find I can't write about it very fully, after all, and I must be forgiven if I cut it short. It's a little too near, yet, after all the years. I know I never want to see snow again—it is the most cruel blue-white in the world.
We stopped the night, of course, and in the morning Roger and Margarita went for a walk on the crust, for it had snowed all night and the evening before—the great, fat, grey clouds were full of it—and we thought we were in for another blizzard like last year's. It had "let up" for a little, as they say about there, but Roger was afraid to risk going away till it had definitely ended, so they went for their walk, and I chatted with Miss Jencks by the fire. They had been gone about an hour when we heard a great scratching and whining at the door (I thought for a moment it was Kitch) and Rosy bounded in, snapping his teeth and glaring fearfully. We both jumped up and he flew at me and caught my sleeve in his teeth—for a moment, I confess, I felt a little queer, for I had seen him throw Caliban and hold him—then, as I drew back, he uttered the most heartrending howl I have ever heard, and spun wildly around, and at that moment I felt suddenly that something was up and that I was wanted. Miss Jencks felt it at exactly that moment, too, and ran for my great-coat before I asked her.
She says that I said,
"Where are they, old fellow? Go seek!" but I don't remember it. I know that she said in a low voice,
"I shall be of no use—I can't run—but I will have everything ready," though she says I must have imagined it.
Rosy flew through the door and I after him—she had the sense to bring me my heavy arctic overshoes, or I should have slipped in a minute—and I ran for about fifty yards.
Then something stopped me. Where it came from, what did it, I don't know and can never know, but I swear I heard a low, distinct voice close to me (not a cry, mind you, but a quiet, hoarse voice) saying,
"Get a rope. Get a rope."
I checked like a scared horse and nearly fell.