The People of the Mist Part 58

"Dearest," he answered, kissing her tenderly, "as we are tied together, it seems that if you die I must die too. Do not break down now after you have borne so much."

"It is the jewels," she sobbed, "the jewels; I feel as though I had committed a murder."

"Oh! bother the jewels!" said Leonard. "We can think about them afterwards." And he advanced towards the flat stone, Juanna feeling the while as though they were two of Carrier's victims about to know the Marriage of the Loire.

As they came to the stone Leonard heard a sound behind him, a sound of footsteps m.u.f.fled by the snow, and glancing round he saw Soa rushing towards them, almost naked, a spear-wound in her side, and the light of madness shining in her eyes.

"Get back," he said sternly, "or----" and he lifted the great spear.

"Oh! Shepherdess," she wailed, "take me with you, Shepherdess, for I cannot live without you."

"Tell her to go away," said Juanna, recognising the voice; "I never want to see her any more."

"You hear, Soa," answered Leonard. "Stay, how has it gone yonder? Speak truly."

"I know not, Deliverer; when I left, Olfan and his brother still held the mouth of the tunnel and were unhurt, but the captain was dead. I slipped past them and got this as I went," and she pointed to the gash in her side.

"If he can hold out a little longer, help may reach him," muttered Leonard. Then without more words, he laid himself and Juanna face downwards on the broad stone.

"Now, Juanna," he said, "we are going to start. Grip fast with your right hand, and see that you do not leave go of the edge of the stone, or we shall both slip off it."

"Oh! take me with you, Shepherdess, take me with you, and I will be wicked no more, but serve you as of old," shrilled the voice of Soa in so despairing a cry that the rocks rang.

"Hold fast," said Leonard through his set teeth, as, disengaging his right hand from about Juanna's waist, he seized the handle of the spear and pressed its broad blade against a k.n.o.b of rock behind them. Now the stone, that was balanced on the very verge of the declivity, trembled beneath them, and now, slowly and majestically as a vessel starting from her slips when the launching cord is severed, it began to move down the icy way.

For the first second it scarcely seemed to stir, then the motion grew palpable, and at that instant Leonard heard a noise behind him and felt his left foot clasped by a human hand. There was a jerk that nearly dragged them off their sledge, but he held fast to the front edge of the stone, and though he could still feel the hand upon his ankle, the strain became almost imperceptible.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

THE Pa.s.sING OF THE BRIDGE

Lifting his head very cautiously, Leonard looked over his shoulder and the mystery was explained. In her madness and the fury of her love for the mistress whom she had outraged and betrayed, Soa had striven to throw herself upon the stone with them so soon as she saw it commence to move. She was too late, and feeling herself slipping forward, she grasped despairingly at the first thing that came to her hand, which chanced to be Leonard's ankle. Now she must accompany them upon their awesome journey; only, while they rode upon the stone, she was dragged after them upon her breast.

A flash of pity pa.s.sed through Leonard's brain as he realised her fearful plight. Then for a while he forgot all about her, since his attention was amply occupied with his own and Juanna's peril. Now they were rushing down the long slope with an ever-increasing velocity, and now they breasted the first rise, during the last ten yards of which, as in the case of Otter, the pace of the stone slowed down so much in proportion to the progressive exhaustion of its momentum, that Leonard thought they were coming to a standstill. Then it was that he kicked out viciously, striving to free himself from the weight of Soa, which threatened to bring them to a common ruin. But she clung to him like ivy to a tree, and he desisted from his efforts, fearing lest he should cause their sledge to alter its course.

On the very top of the rise the motion of the stone decreased almost to nothingness, then little by little increased once more as they traversed a short sharp dip, the same in which they had lost sight of Otter, to be succeeded by a gentle rise. So far, though exciting and novel, their journey had been comparatively safe, for the path was broad and the ice perfectly smooth. Its terrors were to come.

Looking forward, Leonard saw that they were at the commencement of a decline measuring four or five hundred yards in length, and so steep that, even had it offered a good foothold, human beings could scarcely have stood upon it. As yet the tongue of ice was fifty paces or more in width, but it narrowed rapidly as it fell, till at length near the opposite sh.o.r.e of the ravine, it fined away to a point like that of a great white needle, and then seemed to break off altogether.

Now they were well under way, and now they sped down the steep green ice at a pace that can hardly be imagined, though perhaps it is sometimes equalled by an eagle rushing on its quarry from some vast height of air. Indeed it is possible that the sensations of an eagle making his headlong descent and those of Leonard may have been very similar, with the important exception that the bird feels no fear, whereas absolute terror are the only words wherewith to describe the mental state of the man. So smooth was the ice and so precipitous its pitch that he felt as though he were falling through s.p.a.ce, unsupported by anything, for travelling at that speed the friction of the stone was imperceptible.

Only the air shrieked as they clove it, and Juanna's long tresses, torn by it from their fastenings, streamed out behind her like a veil.

Down they went, still down; half--two-thirds of the distance was done, then he looked again and saw the horror that lay before them. Already the bridge was narrow, barely the width of a small room; sixty yards further on it tapered to so fine a point that their stone would almost cover its breadth, and beneath it on either side yawned that unmeasured gulf wherein Nam was lost with the jewels. Nor was this all, for at its narrowest _the ice band was broken away for a s.p.a.ce of ten or twelve feet_, to continue on the further side of the gap for a few yards at a somewhat lower level, and then run upwards at a steep incline to the breast of snow where Otter sat in safety.

On they whizzed, ice beneath them and before them, and ice in Leonard's heart, for he was frozen with fear. His breath had left him because of the rush of their progress, but his senses remained painfully acute.

Involuntarily he glanced over the edge of the stone, saw the sheer depths below him, and found himself wondering what was the law that kept their sledge upon this ribbon of ice, when it seemed so easy for it to whirl off into s.p.a.ce.

Now the gap was immediately in front of them. "G.o.d help us!" he murmured, or rather thought, for there was no time for words, and they had left the road of ice and were flying through the air as though the stone which carried them were a living thing, that, seeing the peril, had gathered up its energies and sprung forward for its life.

What happened? Leonard never knew for certain, and Otter swore that his heart leaped from his bosom and stood in front of his eyes so that he could not see. Before they touched the further point of ice--while they were in the air, indeed--they, or rather Leonard, heard a hideous scream, and felt a jerk so violent that his hold of the stone was loosened, and it pa.s.sed from beneath them. Then came a shock, less heavy than might have been expected, and lo! they were spinning onwards down the polished surface of the ice, while the stone which had borne them so far sped on in front like a horse that has thrown its rider.

Leonard felt the rubbing of the ice burn him like hot iron. He felt also that his ankle was freed from the hand that had held it, then for some minutes he knew no more, for his senses left him. When they returned, it was to hear the voice of Otter crying, "Lie still, lie still, Baas, do not stir for your life; I come."

Instantly he was wide awake, and, moving his head ever so little, saw their situation. Then he wished that he had remained asleep, for it was this:

The impetus of their rush had carried them almost to the line where the ice stopped and the rock and snow began, within some fifteen feet of it, indeed. But those fifteen feet were of the smoothest ice and very sheer, so smooth and sheer that no man could hope to climb them. Below them the slope continued for about thirteen or fourteen yards, till it met the corresponding incline that led to the gap in the bridge.

On this surface of ice they were lying spread-eagled. For a moment Leonard wondered how it was that they did not slide back to the bottom of the slope, there to remain till they perished, for without ropes and proper implements no human being could scale it. Then he saw that a chance had befallen them, which in after-days he was wont to attribute to the direct intervention of Providence.

It will be remembered that when they started, Leonard had pushed the rock off with a spear which Olfan had given them. This spear he drew in again as they began to move, placing it between his chest and the stone, for he thought that it might be of service to him should they succeed in crossing the gulf. When they were jerked from the sledge, and left to slide along the ice on the further side of the gap, in obedience to the impetus given to them by the frightful speed at which they were travelling, the spear, obeying the same laws of motion, accompanied them, but, being of a less specific gravity, lagged behind in the race, just as the stone, which was heaviest, outstripped them.

As it happened, near the top of the rise there was a fissure in the ice, and in this fissure the weapon had become fixed, its weighted blade causing it to a.s.sume an upright position. When the senseless bodies of Leonard and Juanna had slid as far up the slope as the unexpended energy of their impetus would allow, naturally enough they began to move back again in accordance with the laws of gravity. Then it was, as luck would have it, that the spear, fixed in the crevice of the ice, saved them from destruction; for it chanced that the descent of their two forms, pa.s.sing on either side of it, was checked by the handle of the weapon, which caught the hide rope whereby they were bound together.

All of this Leonard took in by degrees; also he discovered that Juanna was either dead or senseless, at the time he could not tell which.

"What are you going to do?" he asked of Otter, who by now was on the verge of the ice fifteen feet above them.

"Cut steps and pull you up, Baas," answered the dwarf cheerfully.

"It will not be easy," said Leonard, glancing over his shoulder at the long slope beneath, "and if we slip or the rope breaks----"

"Do not talk of slipping, Baas," replied Otter, as he began to hack at the ice with the priest's heavy knife, "and as for the rope, if it was strong enough for the Water-Dweller to drag me round the pool by, it is strong enough to hold you two, although it has seen some wear. I only wish I had such another, for then this matter would be simple."

Working furiously, Otter hacked at the hard surface of the ice. The first two steps he hollowed from the top of the slope lying on his stomach. After this difficulties presented themselves which seemed insuperable, for he could not chip at the ice when he had nothing by which to support himself.

"What is to be done now?" said Leonard.

"Keep cool, Baas, and give me time to think," and for a moment Otter squatted down and was silent.

"I have it," he said presently, and rising he took off his goat-skin cloak and cut it into strips, each strip measuring about two inches in width by two feet six inches in length. These strips he knotted together firmly, making a serviceable rope of them, long enough to reach to where Leonard and Juanna were suspended on the stout handle of the spear.

Then he took the stake which had already done him such good service, and, sharpening its point, fixed it as deeply as he could into the snow and earth on the border of the ice belt, and tied the skin rope to it.

"Now, Baas," he said, "all is well, for I can begin from the bottom."

And, without further words, he let himself down till he hung beside them.

"Is the Shepherdess dead, Baas?" he asked, glancing at Juanna's pale face and closed eyes, "or does she only sleep?"

"I think that she is in a swoon," answered Leonard; "but for heaven's sake be quick, Otter, for I am being frozen on this ice. What is your plan now?"

"This, Baas: to tie about your middle the end of the rope that I have made from the cloak, then to undo the cord that binds you and the Shepherdess together, and return to the top of the slope. Once there I can pull her up by the hide line, for it is strong, and she will slip easily over the ice, and you can follow."

"Good!" said Leonard.

Then hanging by one hand the dwarf managed, with such a.s.sistance as Leonard could give him, to knot beneath Leonard's arms the end of the rope which he had constructed from the skin garment. Next he set to work to untie the hide cord, thereby freeing him from Juanna. And now came the most difficult and dangerous part of the task, for Leonard, suspended from the shaft of the spear by one hand, must support Juanna's senseless form with the other, while Otter made shift to drag himself to the summit of the ice, holding the hide line in his teeth. The spear bent dreadfully, and Leonard did not dare to put any extra strain upon the roughly fastened cord of goat-skin, by which the dwarf was hauling himself up the ice, for if it gave they must all be precipitated to the dip below, there to perish miserably. Faint and frozen as he was, it seemed hours to him before Otter reached the top and called to him to get go of Juanna.