"Where are you?" Browne inquired in the same language; "and what is the matter?"
"I am down here," the voice replied; "and I am afraid I have sprained my ankle. I have fallen and cannot get up."
Browne has since confessed that it was the voice that did it. The accent, however, was scarcely that of an Englishwoman.
"Are you on a path or on the hillside?" he inquired, after he had vainly endeavoured to locate her position.
"I am on the hillside," she replied. "The fog was so thick that I could not see my way, and I slipped on the bank and rolled down, twisting my foot under me."
"Well, if you will try to guide me, I will do all in my power to help you," said Browne; and as he said it he moved carefully towards the spot whence he imagined the voice proceeded. From the feel of the ground under his feet he could tell that he had left the path and was descending the slope.
"I think you must be," was the reply. And then the voice added, with a little laugh, "How ridiculous it all is, and how sorry I am to trouble you!"
Had she known to what this extraordinary introduction was destined to lead, it is very doubtful whether she would have considered it so full either of humour or regret as her words implied.
Inch by inch Browne continued his advance, until he could just distinguish, seated on the ground below him, and clinging with both her arms to a stunted birch-tree, the figure of the girl for whom he was searching. At most she was not more than five feet from him. Then, with that suddenness which is the peculiar property of Norwegian mists, the vapour, which had up to that moment so thickly enveloped them, rolled away, and the whole landscape was revealed to their gaze. As he took in the position, Browne uttered a cry of horror. The girl had wandered off the path, slipped down the bank, and was now clinging to a tree only a few feet removed from the brink of one of the most terrible precipices along the Norwegian coast.
So overwhelmed was he with horror that for a moment Browne found himself quite unable to say or do anything. Then, summoning to his assistance all the presence of mind of which he was master, he addressed the girl, who, seeing the danger to which she was exposed, was clinging tighter than ever to the tree, her face as white as the paper upon which I am now writing. For a moment the young man scarcely knew how to act for the best. To leave her while he went for assistance was out of the question; while it was very doubtful, active as he was, whether he would be able, unaided, to get her up in her injured condition to the path above. Ridiculous as the situation may have appeared in the fog, it had resolved itself into one of absolute danger now, and Browne felt the perspiration start out upon his forehead as he thought of what would have happened had she missed the tree and rolled a few feet farther. One thing was quite certain--something must be done; so, taking off his coat, he lowered it by the sleeve to her, inquiring at the same time whether she thought she could hold on to it while he pulled her up to the path above. She replied that she would endeavour to do so, and thereupon the struggle commenced. A struggle it certainly was, and an extremely painful one, for the girl was handicapped by her injured foot. What if her nerve should desert her and she should let go, or the sleeve of the coat should part company with the body? In either case there could be but one result--an instant and terrible death for her.