'How easy it looks,' said Billy, 'and how delicious it must feel to go through the air like that, eh?'
I answered nothing, for I felt that what mattered most to me at present was whether the snow was nice and soft for the somersaults which I felt sure I was about to perform. No question for me, as yet, of a delightful thirty mile an hour excursion through air. I was going beneath the snow, and knew it.
However, Billy led off. Tom came back, and placed him carefully, saw that his snowshoes were straight at starting, gave him his final instructions. 'Don't bear too much forward, or you will over-balance. If you feel yourself going, sit down; that will save you a header under the snow; but you needn't be afraid of hurting yourself in any case, the snow is very soft.'
For a few moments I really thought Billy was about to pass through the ordeal with success. He glided down the first twenty yards of the hill in a manner which recalled the impression of 'easiness' which Tom's skill had aroused. Then something happened which inclined our poor William to direct his right snowshoe towards his left one. Instantly the left one, like an angry dog, resented the liberty, and turned upon its companion. They crossed; then disaster overtook William Onslow. For an instant he suggested a catherine-wheel at the Crystal Palace fireworks; he went three or four times head over heels, his snowshoes looking like the arms of a windmill as he went round. Then he stopped, and it seemed as though a sort of explosion had taken place. There was no sound, but the snow was cast up on all sides to a great height, and Billy disappeared. All that could be seen of our unfortunate William was the point of a snowshoe sticking out of his snow-grave, slowly waggling to and fro as though to remind us that Billy might still be found alive somewhere down below if any one thought it worth while to look for him.
Until I glanced at Tom's face, I felt anxious about Billy. Could he breathe down there? I wondered; and in how many pieces should we find the poor chap when we dug him up? But Tom was bent double with heartless mirth, and I concluded that probably he knew best about such disasters.
'Will he be all right?' I gasped.
'Rather,' Tom replied. 'He will struggle up in a minute.'
Billy did struggle up. There was a kind of upheaval in the white hill-side, and from the midst of the eruption appeared our William, gasping, angry, blinking, spluttering—snow in his mouth, in his nostrils, in his eyes. Snow filled his ears, his pockets, his boots; had crept between his neck and his collar; his hair was white with it, and in the midst of this mass of snowflakes blazed two angry eyes, which shot murderous glances at us because we laughed. Billy said nothing—he could not until he had got rid of the snow which filled his mouth. When he spoke at last he only gasped, 'All right, Bobby; your turn now. You will think it awfully funny when you have been buried alive in wet snow!'
'I'm sorry,' I said; 'but you did look so frightfully funny coming out of the hill-side in a kind of volcanic eruption.'
'Oh, don't mention it!' said angry William. 'I see Tom's amused too; I suppose he was never a beginner! Perhaps he will catch his foot in a root one of these times, and may I be there to see!'