As this absorbing pageant of the mountains disappeared, our thoughts
reverted to De Aery. Had he been carried away by the snow-slip? or was
his mangled corse below us among the black crags laid bare by that
catastrophe? Turning my gaze beneath, I discovered, far down, many
hundred feet, a moving object, scarcely bigger than a fly, and, on
bringing my glass to bear upon it, perceived that it was the Frenchman.
He was standing on a bare rib of rock, with his flag still in his hand,
and apparently unharmed. Waving the ensign to attract our attention, at
the same time he shouted with the whole strength of his lungs. But his
voice scarcely reached us, and probably would not alone have attracted
our notice. We replied with encouraging cheers; and the "three times
three," which we had intended for the American eagle, was given on the
spot to De Aery.
But how to rescue him from his perilous condition was indeed a serious
question. The "Flying Cloud," it was obvious, with her great size and
spreading pinions, could not venture among those ticklish quicksands,
whose insecure foundations had just been so strikingly illustrated
before us. Indeed, the slightest jar might precipitate another fall of
snow, and bury the object of our solicitude five hundred feet deep in
its bosom.
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