"What did you do?" I asked. "Keep cool."
"I struggled. I squirmed with my feet in getting up—and kicked him free.
When I was safe I tried to help him—I meant to help him. But the ledge
was empty and he lay there."
"Good God!" was all I could say.
We passed the succeeding three hours in dead silence. Praed never moved,
I think, and never took his eyes from the sky above the _névé_ basin.
The Eskimos sat quietly beside the grave of their friend. I sprang
across the crevasse where it narrowed, descended to the shelf with the
icicles, and mused upon the courage that had dared a leap to that narrow
footing.
At last the party from the ship arrived with ropes. The leader of the
Relief Party hastened in advance. His pale face turned red as he saw
Praed, and he sprang forward with hand outstretched.
"Praed, old fellow!" he exclaimed. "By the Lord, I'm glad to see you
alive. How did you get out?"
Praed turned toward him. I couldn't see his face, but the leader fell
back.
"What's the matter?" he said. "What is it?"
"It's an accident," I put in. "Daniel has fallen and is dead."
Then Praed showed the first sign of manliness that I had ever seen in
him.
"It is my fault," he proclaimed. "I am to blame for his death. I demand
the right to fetch up his body."
In pity for his evident wretchedness, the leader consented. We lowered
the Professor by a rope to the heap of trash. But as his weight bore
upon the block where the body lay, the ice tilted and fell. Daniel fell
with it. The ringing of icicles on either wall of the glacier lessened
to a tinkling; the tinkling merged into a sustained harmonic, like the
final note of some violin sonata. The tone died away. No final crash
followed. The utmost depths were beyond our hearing.
[Illustration: I should have fallen but someone held me up—it was
Daniel.—Page 295.
Drawn by Henry McCarter.]
During most of the voyage home, Praed behaved like a man in a dream. He
rarely spoke, and when we addressed him he started before he replied.
Only once did he show any trace of his ancient aggressive manner, and
that was when someone said a slighting word of an Eskimo.
"The Eskimos," retorted Praed, "are heroes."
That was absurd. Perhaps there are three or four left in the tribe who
would have done what Daniel did. The Professor was pitiful in his broken
condition. We deemed him a chastened man.
The other day, however, a member of our old party came to see me. There
is only one topic of conversation among men who have journeyed to the
Far North. In the course of our Arctic gossip I asked for news of Praed.
"Haven't you heard?" asked my friend. "He is lecturing through the West.
He has won a great reputation for his courage in descending into the
crevasse."
"Hm!" I said, and both of us were silent. We were thinking of a strain
of ice-music as unearthly as the Theme of the Grail, and of a vast white
tomb, now doubtless afloat upon some Arctic sea. It bears the body of
a better man than Praed.
[Illustration: A hundred feet below ... lay Daniel.—Page 294.]