It was easy to determine that she was lying on a shelf of rock, which was almost level. She felt about this, and even ventured to crawl a short way. Then, her groping hand struck on emptiness, and, shuddering, she drew back from the invisible void. Nevertheless, weakness gave ground to desire. She must press onward, somehow, to the rescue. At once, she began creeping forward, bearing to the right, on which side she felt the sheer wall of a cliff. She judged that, by proceeding thus, she would be safe from the gulf as far as the ledge might run. She had gone perhaps twenty yards in this tortoise manner, when a sudden thought halted her in anger against the folly of having neglected the simplest expedient. Saxe—the others—might be about anywhere, and she had not called to them! Forthwith, she gathered her strength—such as was left to her—and sent out a cry, a pitiful, passionate cry.
“Saxe! Saxe!”
She listened in breathless suspense ... there came no answer.
Then, after a time, she called again; and again there came no answer, yet she refused to lose hold on faith. She sought comfort in the thought that she was still too far from him for her voice to carry. So, she set forward anew on hands and knees, her fingers groping over the rock on which she crawled, to make sure that the way was safe for her passing. Physical suffering rent her, but an indomitable spirit spurred the jaded body. By sheer strength of will, she persisted in that pitiful progress through minute after minute, until at last she deemed the distance traversed enough to warrant a second calling into the dark:
“Saxe! Saxe!” sounded the repetition of her summons. Followed an instant of profoundest silence, as the last echoes of the shrill cry died.
Then, of a sudden, the air was shattered with clamors. A din of shouts roared in her ears, multiplied by the reverberations of the cavern, chaotic, deafening. Out of all the cacophony, her strained sense caught a tone that thrilled the heart to rapture. Her voice rose in a scream—hysterical, triumphant—in answer.
“Saxe! Saxe!” And then a weary murmur: “Oh, thank God!”
A little silence fell. It was broken by her own name, spoken in his voice.
“Margaret!”
“Yes, Saxe,” she answered, simply. It was evident that the distance between them was not very great. She wondered that her calling should have remained unheard in the earlier effort. It occurred to her that perhaps in the first attempt she had not really cried out with all her might—as was, indeed, the case.