James stared about him. Was this the world that he knew? Were kindly creatures moving about somewhere in it, helping each other? Was Lucy in this place? Had she lain against his heart two nights ago? Had he been so blessed? Had life slipped by--and was this the end? Which was the reality, and which the dream? If both had been real, and this was the end of men's endeavour--if this were death--if one slipped out in this cur's way, the tail between the legs--why not end it? He could sleep himself, he thought. Suppose he lay by this brother cur of his and slept? Somewhere out beyond this cold there were men by firelight kissing their wives. Poor chaps, they didn't know the end. This was the end--loneliness and cold. Yes, but you could sleep!... * * * * * Suddenly he started, intent and quivering. He had heard a cry. Every fibre of him claimed life. He listened, breathlessly. Above the knocking of his own heart he heard it again. No doubt at all. He turned to Urquhart and shook him. "They are coming--they are coming--we are going to be saved!" He was violently moved; tears were streaming down his face. Urquhart, out of those still, aware, dreadfully intelligent eyes, seemed to see them coming--whoever they were. He too, and his pitiful broken members, were calling on life. James, on his feet, shouted with might and main, and presently was answered from near at hand. Then he saw Lingen and the guide wading through the snow. "They have found us," he told Urquhart; "it's Francis Lingen and the guide. How they've done it I don't pretend to guess." "They've got around the cornice," Urquhart said. "It can be done I know." He seemed indifferent again, even annoyed again that he couldn't be allowed to sleep. James thought it a pose, this time. Lingen, out of breath but extremely triumphant, met James. "Thank God," he said. James with lifted brows waved his head backward to indicate the sufferer. "He's very bad," he said. "How did you get him to come?" He meant the guide. Flaming Lingen said, "I made him. I was desperate. I've never done such a thing before, but I laid hands on him." "You are a brick," said James. Lingen said, "It's something to know that you can throttle a man when you want to badly enough. I hadn't the slightest idea. It's a thing I never did before. I rather like it." Throttled or not, the guide saved the situation. He saved it, undisguisedly, for his own sake; for he had no zest for helping to carry a bier over the Folgefond. They made a litter of alpen-stocks and the mackintosh, and so between them carried Urquhart down the mountain. No need to dwell on it. They reached the hotel at Odde about midnight, but halfway to it they found help. CHAPTER XXIV URQUHART'S APOLOGY Macartney was right when he said to Lucy, in talking over the adventure, that Urquhart had no moral sense, though she had not then been convinced. But she was to be convinced before she had done with him.