I blinked curiously, groping with owl-like eyes in the gray-green light that swathed me. Before me rose a slope of ice—a gleaming hill blue with the cold azure of undying frost. The smooth surface shone duskily; the twilight fell upon it from above in uncertain patches. Behind and above me was a curtain-like overshadowment of rock.
To my right rose the columns and porticoes of a building, shaded and deepening into blackness where the cloistered frontage retreated into the background. Close to my head, rising with gentle gradient from the pebbly floor, was a paved ascent to the main door of the building. To the left was a dark emptiness, and bell-like out of the hollow distance came the tinkle of running water.
A few yards away lay a man’s form—face to earth and still. The forehead leaned upon the fore-arm; the other hand was stretched abroad, as if grasping an unseen hold. The whole body had the pose of death as we find it when met with suddenness. In the tired apathy that follows a great shock I stared upon it wearily—unthinking, unreasoning, seeing something of familiarity, but with listless inability to follow the crude remembrancing of my brain.
As intelligence grew slowly back to me I struggled weakly and sat up. It was as in a long-forgotten and half-remembered vision that I knew Gerry’s brown shooting-jacket and his greasy field-boots. With further recognition memory began to ooze back.
Gerry had been upon the glacier with me. And Garlicke. And my flask. Gerry had wanted the flask. Well, he couldn’t have it now. I’d lost it. I tried wretchedly to remember how or where. Why, of course! that was what Garlicke had taken. That ice-hill, now, over there—just like the toboggan slide at Toronto two winters ago. I wondered if old Jim Paleriste was still aide. No; seen him in town since. Then there was that sweet little—— Oh, my God! Gerry had fallen in—fallen in—and I listened—and the tern had shrieked just as I thought I heard something. Well, that was Gerry—must be—snoozing away over there on his face. And that building? Well—Why, of course, this was a dream. There was that absurd beast. That was part of a dream. Why on earth couldn’t I wake myself? Baines would bring my hot water directly. Beastly unpleasant; just as well to know it was a dream. I’d have another wink or two. Confounded wet and cold—and, by Jove, cord breeches on. In bed, and blood upon them. Ouf! how my shoulder hurt. And what a scratch upon my palm!
A huge drop splashed from the roof upon my forehead.
At the touch of the cold water, suddenly as the sunbeams rend the sea-mist, my senses leaped back to me, and dread—sickening dread—took possession of my heart.
I stared across intently at Gerry’s rigid limbs. So we had fallen together into the depths—into the cold that kills. He was dead, no doubt; a little struggle against the numbing cold, and I too should pass into the land beyond forgetfulness. We had found the ninth circle of the lost.
I rose and touched and stretched myself warily. How my back and shoulders ached, and what a sharp pang ran through my ankle as I dragged myself across the floor. I knelt beside Gerry and turned his face to the light. It was white and hollow-cheeked; his eyes were closed. I ran my hand beneath his coat and laid it above his heart. Was it still?—or was it my own anxious pulse that beat beneath my palm?