XXIV
Ned knew what fear was, well enough, as he lay in the darkened chasm, staring up at the white line of the crevice above him. The old love of life welled back, sweeping his spirit as in a flood, and with it all the hopes and fears of which life is made. He remembered Lenore, now. Her image was not just a lovely photograph of a past day,—a silvery daguerreotype of a happiness forgotten. He remembered again his debt of service to her, his dear companionship for Bess, his dreams of escape from the island. Rallying his scattered faculties, he tried to analyze his desperate position.
The shelf on which he had fallen was scarcely wider than his body, and only because it projected at an upward incline from the sheer wall had he come to rest upon it. It was perhaps fifty feet long, practically on a level all the way. The wall was sheer for ten feet above him; beyond the shelf was only the impenetrable darkness of the crevice, extending apparently into the bowels of the earth.
Could he climb the wall? There was no other conceivable possibility of rescue. No one knew where he was; no one would come to look for him. Moreover, his escape must be immediate,—within a few hours at most. There was no waiting for Doomsdorf to come to look for him in the morning light. He was dressed in the warmest clothes, but even these could not repel the frightful cold of the glaciers.
Cool-headed, with perfect self-mastery, he shifted himself on the ledge to determine if he had been injured in the fall. He was drawn and shuddering with pain, but that alone was not an index. Often the more serious injuries result in a temporary paralysis that precludes pain. If any bones were broken he was beaten at the start. But his arms and legs moved in obedience to his will, and there seemed nothing to fear from this.
Very cautiously, in imminent danger of pitching backward into the abyss, he climbed to his feet. He was a tall man, but his hands, reaching up, did not come within two feet of the ledge. And there was nothing whatever for his hands to cling to.
If only there were irregularities in the ice. With a surge of hope he thought of his axe.
This tool, however, had either fallen into the crevice or had dropped from his shoulder and lay on the ice above. But there remained his clasp knife. He drew it carefully from his pocket.
Already he felt the icy chill of the glacier stealing through him, the cold fingers of death itself. He must lose no time in going to work. He began to cut, two feet above the ledge, a sharp-edged hole in the ice.
Brittle ice is not easy to cut with a knife. It was a slow, painful process. He knew at once that he must work with care,—any irregular cut would not give him foothold. But Ned was working for his life; and his hand was facile as never before.
He finished the cut at last, then started on another a foot above. He hewed out a foothold with great care.
In spite of his warm gloves and the hard exercise of cutting, the numbing, biting frost was getting to his fingers. But he mustn't let his hand grow stiff and awkward. He did not forget that the handholds, to which his fingers must cling, were yet to be made. They had to be finished with even greater skill than the footholds. Very wisely, he turned to them next.
He made the first of them as high as he could reach. Then he put one in about a foot below. Three more footholds were put in at about twelve-inch intervals between.
At that point he found it necessary to stop and spend a few of his precious moments in rest. He must not let fatigue dull him and take the cunning from his hand. But the first stage of the work was done;—deliverance looked already immeasurably nearer. If he could climb up, then cling on and cut a new hold! Placing the knife between his teeth, he put his moccasin into the first foothold and pulled himself up.
It did not take long, however, to convince him that the remaining work bordered practically on the impossible. These holes in the ice were not like irregularities in stone. The fingers slipped over them: it was almost impossible to cling on with both hands, much less one. But clinging with all his might, he tried to free his right hand to procure his knife.
He made it at last, and at a frightful cost of nervous energy succeeded in cutting some sort of a gash in the icy wall above his head. Standing so close he could not look up, it was impossible to do more than hack out a ragged hole. And because life lay this way and no other, he put the blade once more between his teeth, reached his right hand into the hole, and tried to pull himself up again.
But disaster, bitter and complete, followed that attempt. His numbing hands failed to hold under the strain, and he slipped all the way back to his shelf. Something rang sharply against the ice wall, far below him.
He did not hear it again; but the truth went home to him in one despairing instant. Try as hard as he could, his jaws had released their hold upon the knife, and it had fallen into the depths of the crevice below. He was not in the least aware of the vicious wound its blade had cut in his shoulder, of the warm blood that was trickling down under his furs. He only knew, with that cold fatalism with which the woodsman regards life, that he had fought a good fight,—and he had lost.
There was no use of trying any more. He had no other knife or axe, no tool that could hack a hole in the icy wall. What other things he carried about him—the furs on his back, his box of safety matches, and other minor implements of his trade—could not help him in the least. And soon it became increasingly difficult to think either upon the fight he had made or the fate that awaited him. It was hard to remember anything but the growing cold.
It hurt worst in his hands. So he took to rubbing his hands together, hard as he could. He felt the blood surge back into them, and soon they were fairly warm in the great mittens of fur.
Directly he settled back on his icy shelf and drew the pelts he had taken that day over his shoulders. There was but one hope left; and such as it was, it was curiously allied with despair. He hoped that he had heard true that when frost steals into the veins it comes with gentleness and ease. Perhaps he would simply go to sleep.
It wouldn't be a long time. In fact, a great drowsiness, not unpleasant but rather peaceful, was already settling upon him. The cold of the glacier was deadly. Not many moments remained of his time on earth. The death that dwells in the Arctic ice is mercifully swift.
He had counted on hours, at least. He had even anticipated lingering far into the night. But this was only moments! The cleft above him was still distinctly gray.
The ice was creeping again into his fingers. But he wouldn't try to shake it out again. And now, little, stabbing blades of cold were beginning to pierce his heart.
But likely he would go to sleep before they really began to trouble him. The northern night deepened around him. The wind sprang up and moved softly over the pale ice above him. The day was done.