CHAPTER NINETEEN.
SCARFE PROMISES TO REMEMBER.
"Jeff," said Percy, after a minute or two, "it's nonsense your staying here to get frozen; do go on." "No, old fellow; I prefer your company to my own." "But, Jeff, we may not last out till the morning." "We won't give it up yet, though." Jeffreys had great faith in the caloric of hope, especially for a boy of Percy's temperament.

For himself he saw enough to guess that their position was a desperate one.
The ledge on which they sat was narrow and slanting, and the wind, shifting gradually to the west, began to get round them menacingly, and cause them now and then to grip at the stones while some specially furious gust blew past.

Add to that, Percy's arm was probably broken, and, despite a makeshift bandage and sling, adjusted at imminent peril of being swept away in the operation, increasingly painful.

The mist wrapped them like a winding-sheet, and froze as it fell.
"How long will Julius take getting down ?" asked the boy.
"Not long," said Jeffreys, with a shudder, not wholly caused by the cold.
"An hour?
He could bring them up in three hours, couldn't he ?" "Less, perhaps.

We can hold out for three hours." "Jeff, old fellow, do go; what _is_ the use of you staying ?" "Harder work for the wind to lift two of us than one.