Page:The Great Secret.djvu/123

Rh his rope to a knob of rock like a large button, yet solidly attached to the surface, as he tests before he trusts to it.

Rapidly unrolling the rope from his waist while he has the strength left, he makes a noose and puts it over the knob, drawing it taut. Then, slipping the loose rope from under him, he gives the signal to those below, and, closing his two hands round the rope, lays his chilling body, as a final weight, upon its length on the snow, and swoons straightway off. He has done his duty so far, and gets for a time his reward—surcease.

Dr Fernandez feels the signal vibrating along the rope, and prepares to ascend. He has no consciousness of any duty beyond his own self-preservation. With any other except Anatole he might have tried one of the others before he risked his own precious life first on that rope; but Anatole, with all his boasting, was a staunch comrade, and, in the matter of securing a rope, beyond suspicion. As it stood at present, the rope might break if tried too often, therefore the next up would be the safest. So he prepared to ascend.

He took his boots off, as Anatole had done, and hung them about his neck; then he went up, hand over hand, with great effort necessarily, but without the risks of the first climber, and in time stood on the top beside the senseless body of his comrade, on which he looked curiously.

"Poor devil! he is a bad Anarchist, but a good comrade," he murmured, as he sat on the senseless body for greater comfort, and, after giving the signal, began to put on his boots.

The women came next, drawing themselves wearily up, yet clinging like cats to the rope and to the rock face. Women, when they make the effort, can climb