Ere half the distance was passed they were drawing their breath with panting sobs, and Bonny, not yet wholly recovered from his illness, began to lag behind. Noting this, Alaric also slackened his speed; but his comrade gasped:
"No, Rick. Don't stop. Save yourself. I'm done for. You can't help me. Good-bye."
Thus saying, and too exhausted to run farther, the lad faced about to meet their terrible pursuer, and struggle with him for a delay that might aid the escape of his friend. To his amazement, there was no pursuer, nor in all that white expanse was there a human being to be seen save themselves.
At his comrade's despairing words Alaric too had turned, with the determination of sharing his fate; so they now stood side by side breathing heavily, and gazing about them in wondering silence.
"What has become of him?" asked Bonny at length, in an awed tone, but little above a whisper.
"I don't know," replied Alaric. "He can't have gone back, for there hasn't been time. He can't be in hiding, for there is no place in which he could conceal himself, nor have we passed any crevasse that he could not leap. But if he has slipped into one! Oh, Bonny! it is too awful to think of."
"I heard him only a few seconds ago," said Bonny, in the same awed tone, "and his voice sounded so close that with each instant I expected to be in his clutches."
"Bonny!" exclaimed Alaric, "do you remember a place that sounded hollow?"
"Yes."
"We must go back to it, for I believe he has broken through. If it is in our power to help him we must do it; if not, we must know what has happened."