o the snow and held out his alpenstock.
Emma caught it. He felt himself turned irresistibly round, and a sick
feeling of despair chilled his life-blood. At the same moment a
powerful hand grasped his collar.

"Hold on, Monsieur," cried Antoine, in a deep, yet encouraging voice,
"I've got you safe."

As he spoke, Emma shrieked, "I cannot hold on!"

No wonder! She had not only to resist the rushing snow, but to sustain
the drag of Lewis, who, as we have said, had been carried beyond his
cousin, and whose only chance now lay in his retaining hold of her arm.
Ere the words had quite left her lips, Lewis was seen deliberately to
let go his hold and throw up his arm--it seemed as if waving it.

Next moment Emma was dragged on the rock, where she and her companions
stood gazing in horror as their companion was swept upon the ice-slope
and carried down headlong. The snow was by this time whirled onward in
a sort of mist or spray, in the midst of which Lewis was seen to strike
a rock with his shoulder and swing violently round, while parts of his
clothing were plainly rent from his body, but the painful sight did not
last long. A few seconds more and he was hurled, apparently a lifeless
form, among the _debris_ and rocks far below.

Death, in such a case, might have been expected to be instantaneous, but
the very element that caused the poor youth's fall, helped to save him.
During the struggle for life while clinging to Emma's arm, the check,
brief though it was, sufficed to allow most of the snow to pass down
before him, so that he finally fell on a comparatively soft bed; but it
was clear that he had been terribly injured, and, what made matters
worse, he had fallen into a deep gorge surrounded by precipices, which
seemed to some of the party to render it quite impossible to reach him.

"What is to be done?" exclaimed Lawrence, with intense anxiety. "He
must be got at immediately. Delay of treatment in his case, even for a
short time, may prove fatal."

"I know it, Monsieur," said Antoine, who had been quietly but quickly
uncoiling his rope. "One of the porters and I will descend by the
precipices. They are too steep for any but well-accustomed hands and
feet. You, Monsieur, understand pretty well the use of the axe and
rope. Cut your way down the ice-slope with Jacques. He is a steady
man, and may be trusted. Run, Rollo (to the third porter), and fetch
aid from Gaspard's chalet. It is the nearest. I nee