‘This howling wind----’ Hendricks shouted, as they advanced side by side, pushing their shoulders against the storm. The rest of the sentence vanished into space. Leysin shoved him forward, pointing to where, some twenty yards in front, the figure of Lord Ernie, head down, was battling eagerly with the hurricane. Already he stood near to the shelter of the trees waving his arms with energy towards the summits where the fire blazed. He was calling something at the top of his voice, urging them to hurry. His voice rushed down upon them with a pelt of wind. ‘Don’t let him get away from us,’ bawled Leysin, holding his hands cup-wise to his mouth. ‘Keep him in reach. He may see, but must not take part....’ A blow full in the face that smote him like the flat of a great sword clapped the sentence short. ‘That’s _your_ part. He won’t obey me!’ Hendricks heard it as they plunged across the windswept reach, panting, struggling, forcing their bodies sideways like two-legged crabs against the terrific force of the descending _joran_. They reached the protection of the forest wall without further attempt at speech. Here there was sudden peace and silence, for the tall, dense trees received the tempest’s impact like a cushion, stopping it. They paused a moment to recover breath. But although the first exhaustion speedily passed, that original confusion of strong wind remained--in Hendricks’ mind at least,--for wind violent enough to be battled with has a scattering effect on thought and blows the very blood about. Something in him snapped its cables and blew out to sea. His breath drew in an impetuous quality from the tempest each time he filled his lungs. There was agitation in him that caused an odd exaggeration of the emotions. The boy, as they came up, leaped down from a boulder he had climbed. He opened his arms, making of his cloak a kind of sail that filled and flapped. ‘At last!’ he cried, impatient, almost vexed. ‘I thought you were never coming. The wind blew me along. We shall be late----’ The tutor caught his arm with vigour. ‘You keep by us, Ernest; d’you hear now? No rushing ahead like that. Leysin’s the guide, not you.’ He even shook him. But as he did so he was aware that he himself resisted something that he did not really want to resist, something that urged him forcibly; a little more and he would yield to it with pleasure, with abandon, finally with recklessness. A reaction of panic fear ran over him. ‘It was the wind, I tell you,’ cried the boy, flinging himself free with a hint of insolence in his voice, ‘for it’s alive. I mean to see everything. The wind’s our leader and the fire’s our guide.’ He made a movement to start on again. ‘You’ll obey me,’ thundered Hendricks, ‘or else you’ll go home. D’you understand?’