When he found that it was utterly impossible to push the stone away,he tried to excavate the earth,by means of sticks and his small pocket-knife,from under his leg,but soon found,with a sense of mortal fear,that his limb was resting in a little depression between two other large rocks deeply imbedded in the bottom of the ravine.This depression,and the soft,dry leaves which had covered it like a cushion,prevented the stone from crushing his limb and foot,but also held him in a sort of natural sock.
As these appalling facts became clear,he saw that he was in imminent danger of death by starvation.Then a worse fear than that chilled his very soul.He might die in that lonely spot and never be discovered.The prowling vermin of the night might tear away his flesh,and drag his bones hither and thither,till the leaves that now would soon fall covered them forever from sight and knowledge;but Ida Mayhew,and the orphan girl to whom his honor bound him,would think that he had broken his pledges,and was in truth a vagabond on the earth--eating and drinking,rioting,perhaps in ignoble obscurity.The prospect made him sick and faint for a time,for that which in his first blind sense of shame he had proposed to do,now that he had heard Ida's heaven-inspired words,seemed base and cowardly to the last degree.If she had not brought to him sane and quiet thought,he would have grimly said to himself that fate had taken him out of his dilemma in a fitting way,punishing and destroying him at one and the same time;but now to die and forever seem unworthy of the trust of the woman he so loved and revered was a kind of eternal punishment in itself.He called and shouted with desperate energy for aid but the freshening wind of early September rustled millions of leaves in the forest around him and drowned his voice.He soon realized that one standing on the bank just above him would scarcely be able to hear,even though listening.Oh,why would that remorseless wind blow so steadily!
Was there no pity in nature?
Then in a frenzy he struggled and wrenched his leg till it was bruised and bleeding,but the rocky grip would not yield.He soon began to consider that he was exhausting himself and thus lessening his chances of escape,and he lay quietly on his side and tried to think how long he could survive,and now deeply regretted that his wild passion for the past two days had drawn so largely on his vital powers.Already,after but an hour's durance,he was weak and faint.
Then various expedients to attract attention began to present themselves.By means of a stick he drew down the overhanging branch of a tree and tied to it his handkerchief.He also managed to insert a stick in the ground near him,and on its top placed his hat,but he saw that they could not be seen through the thick undergrowth at any great distance.Then more deliberately,and with an effort to economize his strength,he again attempted to undermine the rocks on which his leg rested,but found that they ran under him and hopelessly deep.At intervals he would shout for help,but his cries grew fainter as he became weak and discouraged.
"O God,"he said,"there is just the bare chance that some one may stumble upon me,and that is all;"and as the glen fell into deeper and deeper shadow in the declining day,even more swiftly it seemed to him that the shadow of death was darkening about him.
At last the bark of squirrels and the chirp and twitter of birds that haunted the lonely place ceased and it was night.Only the notes of fall insects in their monotonous and ceaseless iteration were heard above the sighing wind,which now sounded like a requiem to the disheartened man.Suddenly a great owl flapped heavily over him,and lighting in a tree near by,began its discordant hootings.
"That's an omen of death,"he muttered,grimly.Then at last,in uncontrollable irritation,he shouted,"Curse you,begone!"and the ill-boding bird flapped away with a startled screech,that to Van Berg's morbid fancy was like a demon's laugh.But it alighted again a little further off and drove him half wild with its dismal cries.At last there was a radiance among the trees on the eastern side of the ravine,and soon the moon rose clear and bright;the wind went down,and except the "audible silence"of insect sounds all was still.Nature seemed to him holding her breath in suspense,waiting for the end.He called out from time to time till,from the lateness of the hour,he knew that it was utterly useless.
He began in a dreamy way,to wonder if Ida had missed him yet and was surprised that he had not returned.He thought how strange,how unaccountable even,his conduct must appear to Miss Burton,and how very difficult it would have been to explain it at best.
"Ida was wrong,however,in thinking that it is for me that she is grieving so deeply,"he murmured,"although she may be right in believing that I have raised hopes in Jennie's mind of a happier future,when time had healed the wounds made in the past.If Ihad lived,if by any happy chance I DO live,my only course will be to maintain the character of a friend until she gives up the past for the sake of what I can offer.In a certain sense we will be on equal footing,for her lover is dead and my love is the same as dead to me.But what is the use of such thoughts!I shall be dead to them both in a few hours more,and what is far worse,despised by them both,"and for the first time in all that awful vigil bitter tears rolled down his cheeks.