Chapter Forty.
The solid reality.
A strange feeling of stiffness and cold so painful that for some moments Dallas could not move, but lay gazing straight before him at the heap of ashes, which gave forth a dull glow, just sufficient at times to show the curled-up form of the great dog, and beyond him, rolled up like a mummy and perfectly still, Abel, just as he had last seen him before he closed his eyes. It was so dark that he could not see Tregelly, and he lay trying in vain to make him out.
His head was dull and confused, as if he had slept for a great length of time, and his thoughts would not run straight; but every train of thought he started darted off into some side track which he could not follow, and he always had to come back to where he had made his start.
There it was—some time ago, when they had piled up the fire to a great height so that it might burn long and well while they all sank painlessly and without more trouble into the sleep of death.
And now by slow degrees he began to grasp what seemed to be the fact, that while his companions, even the dog, had passed away, he was once more unfortunate, and had come back, as it were, to life, to go alone through more misery, weariness, and despair.
He shivered, and strangely inconsistent worldly thoughts began to crawl in upon him. He felt he must thrust the unburned pieces of pine-wood closer together, so that they might catch fire and burn and radiate some more heat. It was so dark, too, that he shuddered, and then lay staring at the perpendicular wall beyond the fire—the wall that looked so icy and cruel over-night, but now dim, black, and heavy, as if about to lean over and crush them all out of sight.
Yes, he ought, he knew, to thrust the unburned embers together and put on more wood, so as to make a cheerful blaze; but he had not the energy to stir. He wanted another rug over him; but to get it he would have had to crawl to the sledge, and he was too much numbed to move. Besides, he shuddered at the idea of casting a bright light upon his surroundings, for he felt that it would only reveal the features of his poor comrades hardened into death.