"'Ah,' thought I, with a wistful glance towards the light in the window, 'I'll be glad enough to get there.'
"There were lakes of open water in my path; there were flooded patches, sheets of thin, rubbery ice, stretches of rotten 'slob.' I was not even sure that a solid path to my surgery wound through these dangers; and if path there were, it was a puzzling maze, strewn with pitfalls, with death waiting upon a misstep.
"Had it been broad day, my situation would have been serious enough. In the night, with the treacherous places all covered up and hidden, it was desperate. I determined to return; but I was quite as unfamiliar with the lay of the ice behind as with the path ahead. A moment of thought persuaded me that the best plan was the boldest—to push on for the light in the window. I should have, at least, a star to guide me.
"'I have not far to go,' I thought. 'I must proceed with confidence and a common-sense sort of caution. Above all, I must not lose my nerve.'
"It was easy to make the resolve; it was hard to carry it out. When I was searching for solid ice and my gaff splashed water, when the ice offered no more resistance to my gaff than a similar mass of sea-foam, when my foothold bent and cracked beneath me, when, upon either side, lay open water, and a narrowing, uncertain path lay ahead, my nerve was sorely tried.
"At times, overcome by the peril I could not see, I stopped dead and trembled. I feared to strike my gaff, feared to set my foot down, feared to quit the square foot of solid ice upon which I stood. Had it not been for the high wind—high and fast rising to a gale—I should have sat down and waited for the morning. But there were ominous sounds abroad, and, although I knew little about the ways of ice, I felt that the break-up would come before the dawn. There was nothing for it but to go on.
"And on I went; but at last—the mischance was inevitable—my step was badly chosen. My foot broke through, and I found myself, of a sudden, sinking. I threw myself forward, and fell with my arms spread out; thus I distributed my weight over a wider area of ice and was borne up.
"For a time I was incapable of moving a muscle; the surprise, the rush of terror, the shock of the fall, the sudden relief of finding myself safe for the moment had stunned me. So I lay still, hugging the ice; for how long I cannot tell, but I know that when I recovered my self-possession my first thought was that the light was still burning in the surgery window—an immeasurable distance away. I must reach that light, I knew; but it was a long time before I had the courage to move forward.
"Then I managed to get the gaff under my chest, so that I could throw some part of my weight upon it, and began to crawl. The progress was inch by inch—slow and toilsome, with no moment of security to lighten it. I was keenly aware of my danger; at any moment, as I knew, the ice might open and let me in.
"I had gained fifty yards or more, and had come to a broad lake, which I must round, when the light in the window went out.