I still believe that I could have saved him if I had had the use of both my hands, for I could have guided the rope away from that fatal knife-edge. I knew it was hopeless, but I put every ounce of strength and will into the effort to swing it with its burden into the chimney. He gave me no help, for I think—I hope—that he was unconscious. Next second the strands had parted, and I fell back with a sound in my ears which I pray God I may never hear again—the sound of a body rebounding dully from crag to crag, and then a long soft rumbling of screes like a snowslip.
I managed to crawl the few yards to the anchorage of the gendarme before my senses departed. There in the morning Mary and Angus found me.
Endnotes
-
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan ↩
Colophon
The Three Hostages
was published in 1924 by
John Buchan.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Norman C. Walz,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2003 by
Don Lainson and Roy Glashan
for
Project Gutenberg Australia
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
View of Odda at the Sør Fjord in Hardanger, Norway. Morning Light,
a painting completed in 1836 by
Louis Gurlitt.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
April 25, 2023, 7:54 p.m.
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