A terrible stillness fell upon the place; there was not a sound, not a movement.
Suddenly the girl pointed at a shadow that moved between the rocks—and the crash of McKay's pistol deafened them.
Then, against the dazzling glory of the west a dark shape staggered up, clutching a wavering rifle, reeling there against the rosy glare an instant; and the girl turned her sick eyes aside as McKay's pistol spoke again.
Like a shadow cast by hell the black form swayed, quivered, sank away outward into the blinding light that shone across the world.
Presently a tinkling sound came up from the fog-shrouded depths—the falling rifle striking ledge after ledge until the receding sound grew fainter and more distant, and finally was heard no more.
But that was the only sound they heard; for the man himself lay still on the chasm's brink, propped from the depths by a tuft of alpine roses in full bloom, his blue eyes wide open, a blue hole just between them, and his bandaged hand freed from its camouflage, lying palm upward and quite uninjured on the grass!
CHAPTER X
THE GREATER LOVE
As the blinding lens of the sun glittered level and its first rays poured over tree and rock, a man in the faded field-uniform of a Swiss officer of mountain artillery came out on the misty ledge across the chasm.
"You over there!" he shouted in English. "Here is a Swiss officer to speak with you! Show yourselves!"