"But I feel them—but I hear them!" shouted Godefroy, in an agony of terror.
What gain to keep up pretence longer? Still holding the beast back with no other power than the power of the man's eye over the brute, I called out the truth to the trader.
"Don't move! Don't speak! Don't cry out! Perhaps we can stare them back till daylight comes!"
Godefroy held quiet as death. Some subtle power of the man over the brute puzzled the leader of the pack. He shook his great head with angry snarls and slunk from side to side to evade the human eye, every hair of his fur bristling. Then he threw up his jaws and uttered a long howl, answered by the far cry of the coming pack. Sniffing the ground, he began circling—closing in—closing in——
Then there was a shout—a groan, a struggle—a rip as of teeth—from Godefroy's place!
Then with naught but a blazing of comets dropping into an everlasting dark, with naught but a ship of fire billowing away to the flame of the northern lights, with naught but the rush of a sea, blinding, deafening, bearing me to the engulfment of the eternal—I lost knowledge of this life!
CHAPTER XIX
AFTERWARD
A long shudder, and I had awakened in stifling darkness. Was I dreaming, or were there voices, English voices, talking about me?