"Yes, I defy you! If my sin is to be punished, it shall not be by you, at least. Here, in this lonely place where for miles no other human creature is near, I defy you to do your worst. We are man to man; do you think I fear you?"
In a moment Guffanta had sprung at him, had seized him by the throat, and with the other arm had encircled his body.
"So be it," he hissed in Smerdon's ear, "it suits me better than a prolonged punishment of your crime would do."
For a moment they struggled locked together, and in that moment Smerdon knew that he was doomed; that he was about to expiate his crime. The long, sinewy hand of the Spaniard that was round his throat was choking him; his own blows fell upon the other's body harmlessly. And he was being dragged towards the edge of the moraine, already his back was against the wooden railing that alone stood between the plateau and destruction. He could, even at this moment, hear it creaking with his weight; it would break in another instant!
"Will you yield, assassin, villain?" Guffanta muttered.
"Never! Do your worst."
He felt one hand tighten round his throat more strongly, he felt the other arm of the Spaniard driving him back; in that moment of supreme agony he heard the breaking of the railing and felt it give under him, and then Guffanta's hands had loosed him, and, striking the moraine with his head, he fell down and down till he lay a senseless mass upon the white bosom of the glacier.
And Guffanta standing above, with his head bared to the stars and to the waning moon, exclaimed, as he lifted his hand to the heavens, "Walter, you are avenged."
The day dawned upon the plateau; a few struggling rays of the sun illuminated the great glacier above and turned its dead gray snow and ice into a pure, warm white, while the mists rolled away from the high mountains keeping watch above; and below on the smaller glacier, and at the edge of a yawning crevasse, lay the body of Philip Smerdon.
Two guides, proceeding over the pass to meet a party of mountain climbers, reached the plateau at dawn, and sitting down upon the stone to eat a piece of bread and take a draught of cold coffee, saw his knapsack lying beside it.