He dropped
upon his knees and peered into the crevasse. The walls of the chasm
descended smooth and precipitous, changing in gradual shades and color
from pale transparent green to the darkest blue, until all color was lost
in darkness. He bent his head and shouted into the depths:
"Lattery! Lattery!"
And only his voice came back to him, cavernous and hollow. He shouted
again, and then he heard Michel Revailloud saying solemnly behind him:
"Yes, they are here."
Suddenly Chayne turned round, moved by a fierce throb of anger.
"It's not true, you see," he cried. "He didn't slip out of his steps and
drag his guide down with him. You were wrong, Michel."
Michel was standing with his hat in his hand.
"Yes, monsieur, I was quite wrong," he said, gently. He turned to a big
and strong man:
"Francois, will you put on the rope and go down?"
They knotted the rope securely about Francois' waist and he took his
ice-ax in his hand, sat down on the edge of the crevasse with his legs
dangling, turned over upon his face and said:
"When I pull the rope, haul in gently."
They lowered him carefully down for sixty feet, and at that depth the
rope slackened. Francois had reached the bottom of the crevasse. For a
few moments they watched the rope move this way and that, and then there
came a definite pull.
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