Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/207

Rh Did you know when you banished me all that I was suffering—how I have thought of it till it almost maddened me? did you think I had forgotten the sound of their cries, the tearing of their fingers upon the ice, the thud of their falling bodies going down, down, down, the bite of the rope across my chest, the slackening of it? Do you think I can forget? A matter of feeling, it is nothing else. Was I bound to kill myself, when I had one little chance of escape?—hardly a chance I thought at the time. Listen! Do you know how we fell? The guide went first,—I think he was ill; there was no reason for his fall,—and he lay helpless when he was down. Robertson went next, and I was drawn after them. We slid a man's length and stopped. I had my axe in the ground. The guide never stirred; he was a heavy man, and the strain was awful. Robertson tried to get a hold, and his struggles loosened the axe; we slid again, and again I got my blade in the ice. I held as long as I could, but, under the weight, the handle of my axe broke; then we slid downward again. My God! how awful it was! We clung to each other, we tore at the iron ground with our