The thought of affording help to the other members of the party stimulated Brian to efforts which he would not, perhaps, have made on his own account. In a short time he was able to make his way to the man lying face downwards in the snow. He had already recognised him as one of the guides. It needed but a slight examination to convince him that this man was dead--not from suffocation or cold, but from the effects of a wound inflicted in the fall. The hand, sticking out of the snow belonged to the other guide; it was cold and stiff, and with all his efforts Brian could not succeed in extricating the body from the snow in which it was tightly wedged. Of the young Englishman, Gunston, and the other guide, there was absolutely nothing to be seen. Brian turned sick and faint when the conviction was forced upon him that he would see his friend no more. His limbs failed him; he could not go on. He was born to misfortune, he said to himself; born to bring trouble and sorrow upon his companions and friends. Without him, Gunston would not, perhaps, have attempted this ascent. And how could he carry home to Gunston's family the story of his death? After all, it was very unlikely that he would reach the bottom of the mountain in safety. He had no guide; he was utterly ignorant of the way. There were pitfalls without number in his path--crevasses, precipices, treacherous ice-bridges, and slippery, loose snow. He would struggle on until the end came, however; better to move, even towards death, than to lie down and perish miserably of cold. It is said sometimes that providence keeps a special watch over children and drunken men; that is to say, that those who are absolutely incapable of caring for themselves do sometimes, by wonderful good fortune, escape the dangers into which sager persons are apt to fall. So it seemed with Brian Luttrell. For hours he struggled onwards, sore pressed by cold, and fatigue, and pain; but at last, long after night had fallen, he staggered into a little hamlet on the southern side of the mountain, footsore and fainting, indeed, but otherwise unharmed. Nobody noticed his arrival very much. The villagers took him in, put him to bed, and gave him food and drink, but they did not seem to think that he was one of "the rich Englishmen" who sometimes visited their village, and they did not at all realise what he had done. To make the descent that Brian had done without a guide would have appeared to them little short of miraculous.