He went down with the utmost slowness and precaution. The slope, however, was only for a couple of yards, and then the passage rose horizontal, and then forked into two. One of them closed presently into a mere rift, too narrow for a cat; and he came back to the other. Along it he edged his way for some ten feet, and then stumbled and dropped through another hole in the bottom.
It was only six feet, and he could have pulled himself up again, but he felt weak and exhausted. He seemed to be in a sort of round cavity, and he lay huddled where he had fallen. There was no trickle of moisture there; the air was dry and dead, and heavy and silent like the grave itself.
He must have dozed involuntarily, for he awoke in a panic. Sleep was deadly. It would mean the frost-sleep, from which a man does not awaken. He got up, swung his arms, stamped his feet. His mind felt dazed. He forgot the opening through which he had dropped, and crept on hands and knees into a sort of burrow that led out of one end of his cavern.
How long he thus burrowed through the heart of the glacier he never could quite guess. Time was blurred to him. He tried to fix his mind on the next movement, excluding everything else, telling himself incessantly that he was sure, sooner or later, to find a way out. He must have gone over the same ground many times; in fact, he fancied afterward that perhaps he was much of the time merely passing up and down the same series of ice fissures, circling blindly. The first candle gave out. Anxious to save them, he crawled in the dark for some time, till the terror of it was more than he could bear, and he lighted another. From time to time he stopped, stupid with exhaustion, and half dozed, and was awakened by the subconscious warning. The icy chill penetrated his very bones. More and more forcibly it began to impress his mind that freezing was a painless death.
But the deep roots of self-preservation lived in him and drove him on. He tried to warm his hands over the candle flame; he tried to speak, to restore his courage, but the dead sound of his voice was horrible. He did not know any longer through what labyrinths he had come, and he took any opening that he could find, splitting space with his hatchet when there was not room to get through, and more and more often sinking down in a collapse that was each time more and more prostrating.
He put the candle out to save it and leaned against the ice, hardly feeling the chill. It seemed—he knew—it was not worth while to go on. Queer memories and fancies flitted uncontrollably through his brain like waking dreams. Shipwreck and danger—Boston—Carroll—Eva Morrison—they were remote like dreams, evoking no reaction.
He became entirely unconscious, and came back to himself with the usual start and scare. The dead dark frightened him. He fumbled for his matches; struck one, lighted the candle. As he held up the clear, bright flame he saw, through a thin veil of ice, a human face looking into his own!
CHAPTER XVIII
CAMP OF THE DEAD
The sight was like a part of his own nightmares, and mingled with them. He stared at the face, dark and distorted behind a pale sheet of ice, and it dawned upon him that it was real.
In a spasm of unbearable horror and bewilderment he wheeled and stumbled away down the passage. Within a few feet he halted, collecting himself. The thing could not possibly be real. He went back, drawn by a horrible fascination.