[Illustration: "THEY WERE PARALYZED WITH TERROR TO SEE THE MADMAN GRINNING HORRIBLY"]
There was but an instant of hesitation, and then both lads sprang out on the rugged surface of the glacier, and made a dash for its far-away opposite side. It was a dangerous path, slippery, rough beyond description, and beset with yawning crevasses; but they were willing to risk all its perils for a slender chance of escaping the certain death that was speeding towards the place they had just left. If they could only gain the opposite timber, they might possibly hide as before. It was a faint hope, but their only one.
So they ran, slipped, stumbled, took flying leaps over the parted white lips of narrow crevasses, and made détours to avoid such as were too wide to be thus spanned. They had no time to look behind, nor any need. The fierce cries of the madman warned them that he was in hot pursuit and ever drawing nearer. At one place the ice rang hollow beneath their feet, and they even fancied that it gave an ominous crack; but they could not pause to speculate as to its condition. That it was behind them was enough.
Ere half the distance was passed they were drawing their breath with panting sobs, and Bonny, not yet wholly recovered from his illness, began to lag behind. Noting this, Alaric also slackened his speed; but his comrade gasped:
"No, Rick. Don't stop. Save yourself. I'm done for. You can't help me. Good-bye."
Thus saying, and too exhausted to run farther, the lad faced about to meet their terrible pursuer, and struggle with him for a delay that might aid the escape of his friend. To his amazement, there was no pursuer, nor in all that white expanse was there a human being to be seen save themselves.
At his comrade's despairing words Alaric too had turned, with the determination of sharing his fate; so they now stood side by side breathing heavily, and gazing about them in wondering silence.
"What has become of him?" asked Bonny at length, in an awed tone, but little above a whisper.
"I don't know," replied Alaric. "He can't have gone back, for there hasn't been time. He can't be in hiding, for there is no place in which he could conceal himself, nor have we passed any crevasse that he could not leap. But if he has slipped into one! Oh, Bonny! it is too awful to think of."
