Fix Bay'nets Part 63

"Yes, sir; capital, sir," said Gedge more cheerfully. "Quite puzzling to think its all ice and snow about us. s.h.i.+nes up quite warm; 'most as warm as it s.h.i.+nes down."

"Ha!" sighed Bracy; "it sends life into me again."

He closed his eyes, and seemed to be drinking in the warm glow, which was increasing fast, giving colour to the magnificent view around. But after a few minutes, during which Gedge sat munching slowly and gazing anxiously in the strangely swollen and discoloured face, the eyes were reopened, to meet those of Gedge, who pretended to be looking another way.

The sun's warmth was working wonders, and shortly after Bracy's voice sounded stronger as he said quietly:

"It would have been hard if I had been carried back by the snow at the last, Gedge."

"Hard, sir? Horrid."

"It turned you sick afterwards--the narrow escape I had."

"Dreadful, sir. I was as bad as a gal. I'm a poor sort o' thing sometimes, sir. But don't you talk till you feel all right, sir."

"I am beginning to feel as if talking will do me good and spur me back into being more myself."

"Think so, sir? Well, you know best, sir."

"I think so," said Bracy quietly; "but I shall not be right till I have had a few hours' sleep."

"Look here, then, sir; you lie down in the sun here on my _poshtin_.

I'll keep watch."

"No! no! Not till night. There, I am getting my strength back. I was completely stunned, Gedge, and I have been acting like a man walking in his sleep."

Gedge kept glancing at his officer furtively, and there was an anxious look in his eyes as he said to himself:

"He's like a fellow going to have a touch of fever. Bit wandering-like, poor chap! I know what's wrong. I'll ask him."

He did not ask at once, though, for he saw that Bracy was eating the piece of cake with better appet.i.te, breaking off sc.r.a.ps more frequently; while the food, simple as it was, seemed to have a wonderfully reviving effect, and he turned at last to his companion.

"You are not eating, my lad," he said, smiling faintly. "Come, you know what you have said to me."

"Oh, I'm all right again now, sir; I'm only keeping time with you.

There. Dry bread-cake ain't bad, sir, up here in the mountains, when you're hungry. Hurt your head a bit--didn't you, sir?"

"No, no," said Bracy more firmly. "My right ankle; that is all. How horribly sudden it was!"

"Awful, sir; but don't you talk."

"I must now; it does me good, horrible as it all was; but, as I tell you, I was stunned mentally and bodily, to a great extent. I must have dropped a great distance into the soft snow upon a slope, and I was a long time before I could get rid of the feeling of being suffocated. I was quite buried, I suppose; but at last, in a misty way, I seemed to be breathing the cold air in great draughts as I lay on the snow, holding fast to my rifle, which somehow seemed to be the one hope I had of getting back to you."

"You did a lot of good with it, sir."

"Did I?"

"Course you did, sir. Digging through the snow."

"Oh yes, I remember now," said Bracy, with a sigh. "Yes, I remember having some idea that the snow hung above me like some enormous wave curling right over before it broke, and then becoming frozen hard. Then I remember feeling that I was like one of the rabbits in the sandhills at home, burrowing away to make a hole to get to the surface, and as fast as I got the sand down from above me I kept on kicking it out with my feet, and it slid away far below with a dull, hissing sound."

"Yes, sir, I heard it; but that was this morning. How did you get on in the night, after you began to breathe again? You couldn't ha' been buried long, or you'd ha' been quite smothered."

"Of course," said Bracy rather vacantly--"in the night?"

"Yes; didn't you hear me hollering?"

"No."

"When you were gone all in a moment I thought you'd slipped and gone sliding down like them chaps do the tobogganing, sir."

"You did call to me, then?"

"Call, sir? I expect that made me so hoa.r.s.e this morning."

"I did not hear you till I whistled and you answered, not long ago."

"Why, I whistled too, sir, lots o' times, and nigh went mad with thinking about you."

"Thank you, Gedge," said Bracy quietly, and he held out his hand and gripped his companion's warmly. "I give you a great deal of trouble."

"Trouble, sir? Hark at you! That ain't trouble. But after you got out of the snow?"

"After I got out of the snow?"

"Yus, sir; you was there all night."

"Was I? Yes, I suppose so. I must have been. But I don't know much.

It was all darkness and snow, and--oh yes, I remember now! I did not dare to move much, because whenever I did stir I began to glide down as if I were going on for ever."

"But don't you remember, sir, any more than that?"

"No," said Bracy, speaking with greater animation now. "As I told you, I must have been stunned by my terrible fall, and that saved me from a time of agony that would have driven me mad. As soon as it was light I must have begun moving in a mechanical way to try and escape from that terrible death-trap: but all that has been dream-like, and--and I feel as if I were still in a kind of nightmare. I am quite faint, too, and giddy with pain. Yes, I must lie down here in the suns.h.i.+ne for a bit.

Don't let me sleep long if I drop off."

"No, sir; I won't, sir," replied Gedge, as Bracy sank to his elbow and then subsided with a restful sigh, lying p.r.o.ne upon the snow.

"He's fainted! No, he ain't; he's going right off to sleep. Not let him sleep long? Yes, I will; I must, poor chap! It's knocked half the sense out of him, just when he was done up, too. Not sleep? Why, that's the doctor as'll pull him round. All right, sir; you're going to have my sheepskin too, and you ain't going to be called till the sun's going down, and after that we shall see."

Ten minutes later Bracy was sleeping, carefully wrapped in Gedge's _poshtin_, while the latter was eating heartily of the remains of his rations.

"And he might ha' been dead, and me left alone!" said Gedge, speaking to himself. "My! how soon things change! Shall I have a bit more, or shan't I! Yes; I can't put my greatcoat on outside, so I must put some extra lining in."

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

ONLY HUMAN.