Page:Ayesha, the return of She (IA cu31924013476175).pdf/83

Rh and her lovely eyes were wild with fear. I rose to salute her, and make report, but she cried in a fierce, concentrated voice—

What evil thing has happened here? Thou livest; then where is my lord Leo? Speak, man, and say where thou hast hid my lord—or die.

The vision was extraordinarily real and vivid, I remember, and, considered in connection with a certain subsequent event, in all ways most remarkable, but it passed as swiftly as it came.

Then my senses left me.

I saw a light again. I heard a voice, that of Leo! Horace, he cried, Horace, hold fast to the stock of the rifle. Something was thrust against my outstretched hand. I gripped it despairingly, and there came a strain. It was useless, I did not move. Then, bethinking me, I drew up my legs and by chance or the mercy of Heaven, I know not, got my feet against a ridge of the rock on which I was lying. Again I felt the strain, and thrust with all my might. Of a sudden the snow gave, and out of that hole I shot like a fox from its earth.

I struck something. It was Leo straining at the gun, and I knocked him backwards. Then down the steep slope we rolled, landing at length upon the very edge of the precipice. I sat up, drawing in the air with great gasps, and oh! how sweet it was. My eyes fell upon my hand, and I saw that the veins stood out on the back of it, black as ink and large as cords. Clearly I must have been near my end.

How long was I in there? I gasped to Leo, who sat at my side, wiping off the sweat that ran from his face in streams.

Don't know. Nearly twenty minutes, I should think.

Twenty minutes! It seemed like twenty centuries. How did you get me out? You could not stand upon the drift dust.