CHAPTER XVII

Higher and higher rose the flames as fresh sticks were constantly piled on. The blood again began to circulate through the veins, and enjoyable as the heat was, the sharp tingling in the hands and feet caused the girls acute pain. Then came a feeling of pleasant drowsiness.

'It will do them no harm to go to sleep, I suppose?' Mr. Hawtrey asked Giuseppe.

'No, monsieur. Now that they are warm it is the best thing for them. We will keep up the fire.'

Scarcely a word had yet been spoken. Both Mr. Hawtrey and his friend were completely exhausted. Since they had left the glacier they had staggered along in a half-stupefied condition, feeling that in spite of their exertions they were gradually becoming more and more chilled. As soon as the fire blazed up and there was nothing more to do for the girls, they had thrown themselves down near the fire, and a feeling of drowsiness, against which they had been fighting ever since the storm struck them, was now almost overpowering. Giuseppe produced from his wallet a bottle of wine and some cold meat and bread. These had formed part of the supply that had been brought up for lunch. The rest had been left behind, at the spot where they had started on the glacier.

'Let us eat, monsieur,' he said to Captain Armstrong.

'But the others will want something when they wake.'

'Conrad will start as soon as he has eaten, monsieur, to get help. It is two o'clock now; he will be down at the village in three hours, and will bring up porters and food. The ladies will not be able to walk. It has been a narrow escape.'

'It has indeed. We all owe our lives to you, my good fellows.'

'It is our business,' the man said simply; 'we were wrong in letting you go on to the glacier, but we did not think the storm would have come on so quickly. Sometimes the clouds will be like that for hours before they burst; but it is getting late in the season, and we ought to have run no risks.'

Just as they had finished their meal Giuseppe exclaimed, 'I hear a shout!'

The others listened, and above the roaring of the wind in the pines overhead they heard the sharp bark of a dog.

'It must be a rescue party,' Conrad said, leaping to his feet. 'They are sure to have seen the clouds rolling down the mountains, and would know that there was a storm raging up here,' and accompanied by Giuseppe he hurried away in the direction from which the sound had come, shouting occasionally as they went.

In five minutes Captain Armstrong heard them returning, and the sound of voices and of stumbling feet among the rocks showed that they had a party with them. He rose to his feet just as the figures of the guides, with three or four men, emerged from the mist.

'Thank God we have found you, Armstrong!' Lord Halliburn said, grasping his hand. 'We have had a terrible fright about you all. It was somewhere about eleven when one of the guides ran up to the hotel saying that there was a storm raging amongst the hills, that the clouds had swept across the Mer de Glace, and he was certain the party that had gone up this morning must have been overtaken by it. You may imagine that we lost no time. The guides knew what to do, and got together twenty men, with stretchers and ropes; then we got a lot of blankets from the hotel, and brandy, cold soup, and things of that sort, and started. Till we were more than half way up we were inclined to believe that the fears of the guides were exaggerated, for although we could see the clouds flying fast overhead there was not a breath of wind. However, for the last hour we have had a desperate fight for it. Though we had brought wraps with us, the wind and driving snow were terrible, and we began to despair of ever seeing any of you alive again. We were almost as surprised as delighted when your guides met us and assured me that you were all safe. Where are the others?'

'There they are, sound asleep. The heat of the fire after the bitter cold sent them off at once.'

'Do not disturb them till we have heated some soup and got some boiling water ready,' Giuseppe said. 'Some hot soup for the ladies, and some of the same with some hot spirits and water for the men, will do wonders for them.'

A few minutes later Mr. Hawtrey was roused. He looked round in bewilderment at the men clustered on the other side of the fire.

'Thank you and your friends most heartily, Halliburn, for hurrying so promptly to our rescue,' he said, as soon as he understood the situation. 'One of the guides told me when we got here that he was going to start for help, but that would have meant six or seven hours' delay, and the sooner the girls are in bed the better for them.'

Mr. Fortescue was next aroused, and then he and Mr. Hawtrey woke the girls. They, however, were unable to rise to their feet, their limbs being completely stiffened by cold and fatigue. A basin of hot soup with bread broken into it restored them wonderfully.

'How are we to get down, father?' Dorothy asked.

'You will be carried, dear; the men have brought up stretchers and plenty of blankets and wraps, and there are mules for Fortescue and myself half a mile lower. We can manage to get as far as that, though I feel as if I had been beaten almost into a jelly. It is Lord Halliburn and his friends who have brought this party to our rescue, dear,' for the men had, at the suggestion of the guide, all retired a short distance from the fire when the girls were awakened, as he said that it was better that they should not be confused by seeing themselves surrounded by strange faces.

'It is very good of them,' Dorothy said. 'I was wondering vaguely while I was taking the soup where it had come from, and could not make out what you meant by the stretchers and mules, because I remember we sent those that we came up on, back to the hotel. Where is Lord Halliburn?'

'Halliburn, will you and your friends show yourselves,' Mr. Hawtrey said. 'The ladies are now ready to receive company.'

There was but a short chat, then the stretchers were brought up and the girls helped to take their places upon them. They were then covered up closely with blankets. The porters lifted them, and the party started down the hill, the older men being assisted by a porter on each side, for they were scarcely able to drag themselves along. Being urged by Mr. Hawtrey to go on at once, the rescue party and Captain Armstrong pushed forward at the top of their speed. Being now well wrapped up they felt the cold but little, and in half an hour reached the spot where the mules were awaiting them, and then proceeded quietly down the hill, the porters with the ladies being already far ahead.

On the way down Captain Armstrong related the incidents of their adventure.

'It was touch and go,' he said. 'Another quarter of an hour on that glacier would, I believe, have finished us all. It was not fatigue so much as it was the loss of heart that one felt. The wind seemed to go right through one, and to take all one's pluck out. I wonder the ladies are alive.'

'I can quite understand that,' Lord Halliburn said. 'I had no idea what it would be like until we got into it, and then, though the porters had brought up warm wraps for us, it was terrible. I should quite have given up hope had not the guides persisted that if you had got off the glacier you might have taken shelter somewhere under the lee of a rock, and that if so we might find you unharmed.'

'It was too late when we got off the glacier to think of it. The ladies were already almost insensible, and the rest of us so chilled to the bone that no shelter would have been of any use unless we could make a fire. That, of course, was out of the question, so our only chance was to make straight down the mountain. That was nothing to the work on the ice.'

'Hawtrey and Fortescue seem badly knocked up,' Lord Ulleswater said.

'Yes, they were completely exhausted by the time they got into that ravine. I don't think they could have gone much farther; they dropped off to sleep the instant we lighted the fire, and if we could not have done so I fancy they would never have woke again. The women bore up bravely as long as they had strength to struggle on. They literally went on until they dropped.'

'There is a mule here for you, Armstrong; indeed there are mules for all of us, for we brought six.'

'I am very glad to hear it, for I feel wonderfully shaky about the knees now it is all over.'

'No wonder,' Lord Ulleswater said; 'it is bad enough coming down the hill by oneself, but carrying a lady, it must have been hard work indeed.'

'I did not feel that much. The weight, well up on the shoulders, was nothing, and I kept so close behind the guide that I walked in his footsteps. I went on blindly, without thinking much about the path one way or the other; the thing that worried me most was that either Hawtrey or Fortescue might give out, and I could not think what we should do then. They stumbled very often, and I kept expecting to hear a fall. By the pace the guides went at I felt sure that we could carry the women down, and I thought that the warmth of our bodies would keep life in them; but if Hawtrey or Fortescue fell, I did not see what we should do. We could not leave him there to die, and yet to stop would have been death to all of us. Well, here are the mules, and I am not sorry for it.'

It was not until they were on something like level ground that they could quicken the pace of the animals. They were not long before they overtook the porters with the litters, and then, as they could do nothing there, they rode on ahead to see that everything was in readiness for their reception. With the exception of Captain Armstrong none of the party were able to leave their beds next day, but on the following morning Mr. Hawtrey and Mr. Fortescue were both up in time to say good-bye to Lord Halliburn and his friends, who were starting for Martigny. With the girls it was a longer matter. Clara Fortescue was delirious on the morning after their return, and an English doctor staying in the hotel at once pronounced it to be an attack of rheumatic fever; the other two had symptoms of the same malady, but these passed off, and on the fourth day both were able to get up, and on the following day were on sofas in the sitting-room.

'Well, you have made a nice business of it, young ladies,' Mr. Singleton said, when he paid them his first visit; 'this is what comes of mountaineering. You would have done much better to have stopped down here in the valley, instead of pretty nearly frightening us all to death, besides risking your own lives and injuring your health. I am glad to hear that your sister is a little better this morning, Miss Fortescue; the doctor thinks that the worst has passed, though she will still have a troublesome time of it.'

'I am sorry we frightened you all, Mr. Singleton,' Dorothy said.

'Well, Mrs. Fortescue and I had a bad time of it, Dorothy. Of course, we could not quite realise the danger, for down here the sun was shining brightly all the morning. I don't think Mrs. Fortescue did quite realise it until you arrived, but I knew the guides here would not have been so alarmed unless there had been real danger. I should have come up with the party but I knew that so far from being of the slightest use I should only have been a trouble to them. It was fortunate Halliburn and his two friends happened to be in the hotel; almost everyone else was out, and they took the management of the expedition in their hands, and hurried things up wonderfully. I never liked the man so much before as I did then. It was a tremendous relief when they rode in with Armstrong and brought us the news that you would be here in half an hour, and that although you were exhausted and worn out with the terrible time you had had they hoped that you would be none the worse for it. I think I realised what you had gone through most when your fathers came in, a quarter of an hour after you had been carried up to your rooms. They had to be lifted off their mules, and helped upstairs, where hot baths had been got ready for them, and if two strong, hearty men were so utterly exhausted, one could easily understand what a time you must have gone through.'

'Yes, but we were carried, Mr. Singleton,' Ada Fortescue said; 'I don't remember much about it, I was so cold and miserable, but I know that once I almost laughed at the thought that I was being carried like a package, on a guide's back, and what my mother would think of it if she saw me.'

'What did you feel, Dorothy?'

'I don't quite know what I felt,' she said reluctantly, and with somewhat heightened colour. 'I know I felt ashamed of myself; I used to think that I was as strong in my way as men are in theirs, and it seemed to me disgraceful that I should have to be carried. Then I could not help thinking, where the road was very steep, and I could hear the guide in front telling Captain Armstrong where he should step, that he might slip, and we should be both killed together. Otherwise, I felt safe, for I could tell that he was walking firmly, and was not feeling my weight too much. I don't think I lost consciousness at all; my body felt quite warm, but my hands and my feet were as if they were dead. I should not have been at all surprised to find that I had lost them altogether.'

In the afternoon Captain Armstrong was admitted to see the invalids. He at once laughed down Dorothy's attempt to thank him for having saved her life.

'I only did for you, Miss Hawtrey, exactly what the guides did for Miss Fortescue and her sister; there is nothing very terrible in carrying a weight when you get it comfortably fixed. Why, the porters in the Andes think nothing of carrying people right over the mountains; it is only a matter of getting weight properly balanced. I saw how the guides did; they knotted the shawls over their caps just above the peak. They carry weights here you know, as they do in most mountain countries, with a strap across the forehead. Coming over the ice I really did feel you heavy, though I had two others to help me with you, but the cold seemed to have taken all one's strength out of one, and the weight was all on one side; coming down was nothing in comparison. I believe I could have carried you right down to the hotel here with an occasional rest. I was as warm as a toast when we got into the wood. You must not think or say anything more about it; if you do I shall straightway pack up my kit and take my place in the next diligence wherever it may be going to. And now, were you able to walk into this room pretty easily?'

'We are both very stiff; I felt curiously weak, just as if I had had a long illness, but the doctor says it will soon pass off and that in a week we shall both be walking about again.'

'I rather think this will change our plans, Armstrong,' Mr. Hawtrey said; 'by the time we get back it will be far on in October and wetting damp and cold up in Lincolnshire, and the doctor advises me that it would be better to cross the Alps and spend a few weeks in Northern Italy, so as to set Dorothy completely up and to work the cold out of her system. I have not settled upon it yet, but I think that is probably what we will do. It is of no use running the risk of her getting rheumatism. But at any rate, we shall be here for another week or ten days, by which time I hope Clara Fortescue will have fairly turned the corner.' And so they lingered on.

In a week the two girls were able to get about again, to enjoy the sunshine in the valley. The hotel was nearly empty now, the season being over. Clara Fortescue was fairly through the fever, though still very weak; it was, however, only a question of time. Captain Armstrong still remained. Dorothy could no longer disguise from herself why he was staying. Up to the day of the expedition up to the Mer de Glace she had refused to admit the idea into her mind. She had before told him distinctly that she could never care for him in the way he wanted, and she had believed he had accepted the decision as final. They were great friends, and he had enjoyed their stay at Martigny just as she had done, and she had observed no difference in his manner to her or her two friends – in fact, if anything, she had thought, and was rather pleased than otherwise, that he was oftener by the side of Ada Fortescue than by her own.

There had been, however, something in his manner during that terrible time that had opened her eyes; something perhaps in the tone of his voice when he cheered her on, or in the clasp of his arm as he aided her father to carry her, that had told her the truth, and when he still lingered on at Chamounix she knew what was coming. What she did not know was what her answer would be. She liked him very much; he had saved her life; she was sure he would do his best to make her happy; and yet she did not feel that she loved him as she thought a woman should love a man who was to be her husband. She had made one mistake and had regretted it bitterly. She had become engaged without feeling that love, and had vowed to herself that never again would she say 'Yes' unless her whole heart went with her words. She had had her girlish hero, and for years had thought that no one was like him. Had he come back a little earlier, and had he still remained her ideal, she would never have become engaged to Lord Halliburn.