Lately his advance had been so tedious, the efforts needed to overcome the difficulties so great, that all his faculties had been concentrated upon the single desire to save his own life and that of the child; so that the vision of the outset had been losing some of its power.
He staggered to his feet; the child hung a dead weight round his neck, she was quite unable to make further effort. What should he do? He could not leave her to perish here, this dear companion of the mountain tops!
Yet thus encumbered, how could he reach the final height? His strength was spent, his feet were bleeding, his clothes were torn, the wounds of the night before were a throbbing agony beneath the clinging arms of the little girl.
He felt that they were breaking open anew, that his warm blood was slowly trickling down on to the snow, and with each drop that fell his life seemed to be oozing slowly away. And there far above, like the tantalizing vision out of an ethereal world, rose the peak of his desire.
Again the rays of the sun reddened its crown like a glowing flower. Was it mocking him in his mortal distress? Was it luring him on to life or to death? But he must mount, always farther; he could not give up now within sight of his goal! Courage! Courage! He must conquer and win! But what were those white arms beckoning to him out of the morning mist? What were those veils of transparent vapour waving to him from the rock above? Were they apparitions out of some fantastic dream, some hallucination of his tired brain?
Anyhow he would desperately follow them, perhaps they would help him in his distress; but the higher he climbed the farther did the beckoning figures always recede; each time he had thought to reach the height where they stood he saw them far away hovering above him on some steep boulder, which again he scaled only to be baffled anew.
It was an awful pursuit, the heavy child clinging around his neck, his open wounds dripping, leaving red traces wherever he passed.
His shoes had been cut almost to shreds by the rugged rocks, so that his feet suffered an agony of pain.
A blind rage seized him against these spirits of the wilds who mocked his cruel plight; and yet, had he but known it, it was just their alluring aloofness that was helping him upon his final climb. His overwhelming longing to reach those ethereal beings with whom he hoped to find rest gave him the energy to clamber always farther, the intensity of his desire infusing almost superhuman force into his attenuated body.
Suddenly he stopped with a gasp, almost letting the child fall from his arms;—other visions were now before him floating amongst the clouds.