"Many things have I seen in my trade as guide, but never one like this.

What?
To cut the rope for the sake of Monsieur there," and he pointed to number two, whose share in the great adventure was being overlooked, "before giving himself to almost certain death for the sake of Monsieur with the weak heart, who had no business on a mountain; to stretch over the precipice as the line parted, and hold Monsieur with the weak heart for all that while, till I could get a noose round him--yes, to go on holding him after he himself was almost dead--without a mind! Good God! never has there been such a story in my lifetime on these Alps, or in that of my father before me." Then came the descent, Godfrey supported on the shoulder of the stalwart Karl, who, full of delight at this great escape from tragedy, and at having a tale to tell which would last him for the rest of his life, "jodelled" spontaneously at intervals in his best "large-tip" voice, and occasionally skipped about like a young camel, while "Monsieur with the weak heart" was carried in a chair provided to bear elderly ladies up the lower slopes of the Alps.
Some swift-footed mountaineer had sped down to the village ahead of them and told all the story, with the result that when they reached the outskirts of the place, an excited crowd was waiting to greet them, including two local reporters for Swiss journals.
One of these, who contributed items of interest to the English press also, either by mistake, or in order to make his narrative more interesting, added to a fairly correct description of the incident, a statement that the person rescued by Godfrey was a young lady.

At least, so the story appeared in the London papers next morning, under the heading of "Heroic Rescue on the Alps," or in some instances of, "A Young English Hero." Among the crowd was the Pasteur, who beamed at Godfrey through his blue spectacles, but took no part in these excited demonstrations.

When they were back at their hotel, and the doctor who examined Godfrey, had announced that he was suffering from nothing except exhaustion and badly sprained muscles, he said simply: "I do not compliment you, my dear boy, like those others, because you acted only as I should have expected of you in the conditions.

Still, I am glad that in this case another was not added to my long list of disappointments." "_I_ didn't act at all, Pasteur," blurted out Godfrey.