Johnny had fortunately been so tired out that he had gone to bed soon after coming in, and had not been wakened by the alarm till eleven o'clock. Then, startled by the noises and lights, he had risen and made his way to his aunt. Substantial help he could not give-even his German was halting, but he was her stay and help, and she would- as she knew afterwards-have been infinitely more desolate without him. And now, when all were persuading her to wait, as they said, till more aid could be sent for to Kandersteg, he knew as well as she did that it was but a kindly ruse to cover their despair, and was striving to insist that another effort in daylight should be made.
He it was who uttered the "Hark," and added, "That is Chico!"
At first the tired, despairing guides did not hear, but going along the road by the lake in the direction from which the sound came, the prolonged wail became more audible.
"It is on the moraine," the men said, with awe-struck looks at one another.
They would fain not even have taken John with them, but with a resolute look he uttered "Ich komm."
Mr. Graham, an elderly man, not equal to a moraine in the snow, stayed with the mother. He wanted to take her back to prepare for them, as he said-in reality to lesson any horrors there might be to see.
But she stood like a statue, with clasped hands and white face, the small feathery snow climbing round her feet and on her shoulders.
"O God, spare my boys! Though I don't deserve it-spare them!" had been her one inarticulate prayer all night.
And now-shouts and yodels reach her ears. They are found! But how found! The cries are soon hushed. There is long waiting-then, through the snow, John flashes forward and takes her hand. He does not speak-only as their eyes meet, his pale lips tremble, and he says, "Don't fear; they will revive in the inn. Jock is safe, they are sure."
Safe? What? that stiff, white-faced form, carried between two men, with the arm hanging lifelessly down? One man held the smaller figure of Armine, and kept his face pressed inwards. Kind words of "Liebe Frau," and assurances that were meant to be cheering passed around her, but she heard them not. Some brandy had, it seemed, been poured into their mouths. They thought Jock had swallowed, Armine had not.
At intervals on the way back a little more was administered, and the experienced guides had no doubt that life was yet in him. When they reached the hotel the guides would not take them near the stove, but carried them up at once by the rough stair to the little wood- partitioned bedrooms. There were two beds in each room, and their mother would have had them both together; but the traveller, and the kindly, helpful young landlady, Fraulein Rosalie, quietly managed otherwise, and when Johnny tried to enforce his aunt's orders, Mr. Graham, by a sign, made him comprehend why they had thus arranged, filling him with blank dismay.
A doctor? The guides shook their heads. They could hardly make their way to Leukerbad while it was snowing as at present, and if they had done so, no doctor could come back with them. Moreover the restoratives were known to the mountaineers as well as to the doctors themselves, and these were vigorously applied. All the resources of the little way-side house were put in requisition. Mr. Graham and Johnny did their best for Jock, his mother seemed to see and think of nothing but Armine, who lay senseless and cold in spite of all their efforts.
It was soon that Jock began to moan and turn and struggle painfully back to life. When he opened his eyes with a dazed half- consciousness, and something like a word came from between his lips, Mr. Graham sent John to call the mother, saying very low, "Get her away. She will bear it better when she sees this one coming round."
John had deep and reverent memories connected with Armine. He knew- as few did know-how steadfastly that little gentle fellow could hold the right, and more than once the two had been almost alone against their world. Besides, he was Mother Carey's darling! Johnny felt as if his heart would break, as with trembling lips he tried to speak, as if in glad hope, as he told his aunt that Jock was speaking and wanted her, while he looked all the time at the still, white, inanimate face.
She looked at him half in distrust.
"Yes! Indeed, indeed," he said, "Jock wants you."
She went; Johnny took her place. The efforts at restoration were slackening. The attendants were shaking their heads and saying, "der Arme."
Mr. Graham came up to him, saying in his ear, "She is engrossed with the other. He will not let her go. Let them do what is to be done for this poor little fellow. So it will be best for her."
There was a frantic longing to do something for Armine, a wild wonder that the prayers of a whole night had not been more fully answered in John's mind, as he threw himself once more over the senseless form, propped with pillows, and kissed either cheek and the lips. Then suddenly he uttered a low cry, "He breathed. I'm sure he did; I felt it! The spoon! O quick!"
Mr. Graham and the Fraulein looked pitifully at one another at the delusion; but they let the lad have the spoon with the drops of brandy. He had already gained experience in giving it, and when they looked for disappointment, his eyes were raised in joy.
"It's gone down," he said.
Mr. Graham put his hand on the pulse and nodded.
Another drop or two, and renewed rubbing of hands and feet. The icy cold, the deadly white, were certainly giving way, the lips began to quiver, contract, and gasp.
Was it for death or life? They would not call his mother for that terrible, doubtful minute; but she could not long stay away. When Jock's fingers first relaxed on hers, she crept to the door of the other room, to see Armine upheld on Johnny's breast, with heaving chest and working features, but with eyes opening: yes, and meeting hers.
Johnny always held that he never had so glad a moment in all his life as that when he saw her countenance light up.
The first word was "Jock !"
Armine's full perceptions were come back, unlike those of Jock, who was moaning and wandering in his talk, fancying himself still in the desolation of the moraine, with Armine dead in his arms, and all the miseries, bodily, mental and spiritual, from which he had suffered were evidently still working in his brain, though the words that revealed them were weak and disjointed. Besides, he screamed and moaned with absolute and acute pain, which alarmed them much, though Armine was sufficiently himself to be able to assure them that there had been no hurt beyond the strain.
It was well that Armine was both rational and unselfish, for nothing seemed to soothe Jock for a moment but his mother's hand and his mother's voice. It was plain that fever and rheumatism had a hold upon him, and what or who was there to contend with them in this wayside inn? The rooms, though clean, were bare of all but the merest necessaries, and though the young hostess was kind and anxious, her maids were the roughest and most ignorant of girls, and there were no appliances for comfort-nothing even to drink but milk, bottled lemonade, and a tisane made of yellow flowers, horrible to the English taste.
And Jock, ill as he was, did not fill his mother with such dread for the future as did Armine, when she found him, quiet indeed, but unable to lie down, except when supported on John's breast and in his arms-with a fearful oppression and pain in his chest, and every token that the lungs were suffering. He had not let them call her. Jock's murmurs and cries were to be heard plainly through the wooden partition, and the little fellow knew she could not be spared, and only tried to prevent John and Mr. Graham from alarming her. "She- can't-do-any-good," he gasped out in John's ear.
No, nobody could, without medical skill and appliances. The utmost that the house could do was to produce enough mustard to make two plasters, and to fill bottles with hot water, to warm stones, and to wrap them in blankets. And what was this, in such cold as penetrated the wooden building, too high up in the mountains for the June sun as yet to have full power? The snow kept blinding and drifting on, and though everyone said it could not last long at that time in the summer, it might easily last too long for Armine's fragile life. Here was evening drawing on and no change outside, so that no offer of reward could make it possible for any messenger to attempt the Gemmi to fetch advice from Leukerbad.