He cleared the fissure, but staggered on the slippery ice beyond. He fell heavily, but still held his son so that Bela fell uppermost and dropped upon him.
Crushed by his weight, Sabran sank at full length on the white crystal ground; alone he would have leaped as surely as the chamois.
The shock awoke Bela from his trance; he opened his blue eyes giddily.
'It is you!' he murmured feebly, as he felt himself lying on his father's breast.
'It is I!' said Sabran. 'My child, if you can move, try and creep to that hut and call. I cannot.'
The child, without a sound, trembling sorely, and with a sense of confusion making his head dizzy, obeyed, drew himself slowly up, and dragged his tired, aching, cramped limbs over the snow.
'You are brave,' murmured his father, whose eyes followed him. 'You are your mother's son.'
Bela reached the door of the hut and beat on it with his little frozen hands, and then fell down against it.
'It is I—Count Bela!' he managed to cry aloud. 'Come to my father; quick!'
The door was flung aside, and the keepers of the hut rushed out at the first cry. They had been asleep. They were old jägers, past the work of the forests, but still strong. Having lighted the beacon without, they had drunk a little wine, and chattered, and then dosed. Terrified at their own negligence and at the sight of their lady's son, they staggered out into the night, and together they bore the body of Sabran into the refuge. He was unable to rise.