South of Prince Town roll high and open heaths, whereon, under the tremendous impetus of the tempest, the snow was swept horizontally. It fell, only to be gathered up again and launched forward in writhing wisps and veils. Along these level heights Commodore Miller, Stark, and Knapps made their way; then when each heart sank low and every sanguine pulse was nearly frozen, they touched the skirts of the young plantations at Tor Royal and hoped again. Half a mile distant the hospitality of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had been at their command, and the knight had gladly closed stout doors between the wanderers and death; but of the establishment within these snow-bound young forests they knew nothing. Their thought was the cabin of Lovey Lee, concerning the position of which she had made them clear; and now they held on to the end of the wood, then turned a compass-point southward and faced the Moor again.
Cecil Stark at length spoke, and shouted into the Commodore\'s ear.
"We\'re on the right road. We may pull through after all."
"Save your breath and keep together," answered the older man. "I have some fight in me yet."
"And you, Jimmy?"
"I wish I was ter prison."
"Blame yourself that you\'re not," panted Stark.
"I duz," answered the sailor. "I s\'pose there\'s no grizzly bars snooking around these parts? I thought I squinted something back away."
"No; but there are stone crosses; and one stands nigh Lovey Lee\'s. Hit that and we\'re saved."
"Miss it and—but no use to wherrit. \'Tis a very good end. I knew a chap as slept hisself out of life very comfortable on such a night. Narry a pang; and I found him in the morning froze to the marrow, and smiling about it, like he was a statue in church. Better than a bagonet in your belly, anyhow."
"drop that talk, bo\'sun. We\'ll win yet!"
They fought on silently, but the pace became slower as their force abated and the snow increased. Now they felt the full strength of the wind, and nature instinctively made them turn and edge away from it.
"Hold to your left, lads, or we are done for!" cried Miller. "Keep the wind on the port bow."
"Be damned if I kin suffer it against my cheek any more," answered Knapps. "My ear and jaw are just frozen and my left eye\'s bunged up with ice."
Twice more Stark addressed the sailor, but received no answer. Then, turning again, he found one shadow beside him instead of two.
"Is that you, Stark?"
"Ay, sir."
"Where\'s Knapps?"
"I\'m afraid he\'s lost, sir. He would hold off a point. Had I sought him, I must have lost you."
"Shout—shout with all your might. We may save him yet."
They lifted their voices, but the piping of them was gulfed in the roar of the wind. The ice poured out of the darkness, and, despite the snow-blink, an awful circumambient gloom hid all things from their eyes. Only the wan upthrown illumination at their feet told of the snow beneath.
"I implore you to be moving, sir. Right or wrong, we must hold on now," cried Stark, for he saw that his companion seemed to hesitate.
"Knapps may be right. Can we have got too far east? However, \'tis all one. Blessed sleep\'s ahead, my poor boy. \'Tis good to die in the great Hand of God and not behind stone walls."
"Don\'t speak of dying, Commodore. Get closer; take my arm and husband your strength as you may."
Stark closed up on the other\'s left hand between his friend and the weather; but Miller appreciated the action and fought against it.
"You shall not do this for me. I\'m tougher, older, better seasoned!"
"For love of life, speak no more," Stark answered. "Hold close. We may save each other."
Now arm in arm, or sometimes hand in hand, but never apart, they battled through a dread hour of agony. Often they fell and bruised themselves upon ice and granite; often they dropped headlong into some snow-hidden rift; then surmounting it, they struggled on again, half blind, half strangled. Despite their tremendous exertions, no warmth to fight the wind, no heat of blood could either generate. They froze as they fought and their progress became very slow. They grew conscious of sloping land and passed where hills of stone rose to the right, while the storm, from lower levels, leapt upwards as it seemed out of some dark crater on the left of them. They had missed Siward\'s Cross by miles and now wandered under Fox Tor above the Mire. Each yearned to lie down and end it; and each knew that a longing to yield was in the heart of the other. For a moment they stood in deep snow where great rocks towered and broke the wind. Then Commodore Miller addressed Stark, and his dreamy, placid utterance sounded strange in the fury of the hour. Shouts and a frenzy of fear or of energy had better, chimed with the free and fearful forces of the air; but the American spoke like a spirit and looked upon these material phenomena of night and tempest as one already above their influences and beyond their power.
"\'Tis a great thought that you and I are bigger than this weather. A man\'s soul can steer through the worst storm ever loosed against earth—steer a straight course and fear no evil of earth or sea. This dust of us will soon be ice, my lad. We shall sink into this frozen wilderness as rain falls on a river; but we ourselves——"
"Hope on, hope on," gasped the younger man. "We\'ll fight the British weather as we\'ve fought the British ships. There\'s a shot in the locker yet!"
They crawled forward, and Stark, himself failing slowly, well knew that the increasing weight upon his arm must soon bring him to earth with his friend. Miller was nearly spent. He began to speak fitfully, but rambled in his speech, and discussed men and matters beyond his companion\'s knowledge. For ten minutes they pressed on, but advanced little more than two hundred yards in the time. Snow still fell, though less heavily, and it seemed to Stark that the wind abated a trifle, but he could not be sure, for sensation was almost dead. His legs felt nothing, even when he struck them against the stones. They had followed a wide slope of the land, and now stood in the very shadow of death where Childe the Hunter\'s ruined cenotaph had risen, and where legend pointed to the sportsman\'s place of passing even on such a night, and in such an hour.
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