Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 116: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BEYOND THE GREAT SOUTH WALL. my heels into a crevice, bracing myself starkly to meet his sudden pull. 1 thrust my own axe point into the ice, buttress- ing myself upon it. But for this thre¢ bodies would have been racing into the womb of the ice hill instead of one. _, A dull thud came echoing up from the dark shadows beneath us; a few glassy splinters crackled and pattered downward ; then came z silence broken only by the throb of our pulses as they sang dull and muffled in our ears. Garlicke was as one possessed. “ My God, my God!” he shrieked, “I’ve mur- dered him—murdered him. What am I todo? What amItodo? Speak, you fool,” he yammered, “ tell me what I’m to do—to do,” and his voice rose to a scream, while he shook at my coat tempestuously. “ Don’t tell me that we can’t reach him. My God, I shall go mad,” and he flung himself down upon the ice, tearing at it with bruised and bleeding fingers as he chattered hyster- ically. ‘“ For God’s sake, Heatherslie, say there’s hope—that we can get him up. We must—we must. Lord have mercy upon me, what am I to do?” and he leaned over the crumbling edge, peering hopelessly into the depths. Do you know the horrible, leaden, choking pain that leaps up and takes you by the throat, strangling you in a very fog of horror, when, suddenly, swiftly, in the midst of hight and laugh- ter, the Great Shadow falls between you and one at your very side. When your heart swells with quiver- ing pulses that shake your flesh. When your eyes burn and the deafness of de- spair is in your ears; when your knees rock, and the guides and thews within you string themselves like cords against your tense nerves. Those of you who have been in like case to mine can realize what I felt when I saw the friend, who had been to me as a brother, snatched into the darkness of that cold pit. You of the majority who have stood in no such brain wrenching mist of terror—to you no words can describe it. 107 Those two seconds stand out redly scarred against the map of my life. They seemed ages untold of cruel an- gush. The strain of Garlicke’s weight had nearly knocked all the breath out of my body, but I managed to swing him to his feet. “ Oh, you fool, you—you, what are you?” I gasped. “ Pull yourself into the semblance of a man. Race-to the ship for help. Get ropes. Run, you fool, run,’ and I thrust him from me roughly as I sat down panting. He tottered across the few yards of ice between us and the rocks, and be- gan to reel unsteadily down the slopes towards the great basin and the ship. ’ As he disappeared, and the breath began to slide back into my cramped lungs, I seized my axe and hewed my- self a standing place beside the cre- vasse. Then I lay down upon my face, my head and shoulders outstretching far above the blue gulf, and set myself to listen with hopeless ears. The hard damp silence of a vault was over all. No vestige of a sound was there, but the chill drip of the melting ice, and far away out of the distance the half heard break of waves upon the sea cliffs. Now and again the wail of a tern or the call of a gull broke jarringly across the stillness, but from the grave below came nothing—no smallest sound to poise a hope upon. Yet—was it the self mesmerism of a hope that would not be denied?—so faint that it left the merest echo of a tremor in my ears, a tiny sound seemed to float up from the depths. I called aloud. I shrieked to a fierce unnatural falsetto in my excitement. I struggled Gesperately to pierce the dulling thick- nesses of ice. I strained hazardously across the gulf in my agony to listen, listen, listen for the ghost of a reply. Still no answer came; only the pitiless drip pattered on monotonously. I pictured it falling on Gerry's cold, upturned face: cnoe SS) eo