"Pra' has fallen!" cried the man. "The ice has eaten him. He has gone to sleep forever."
"Damnation!" I shouted. "Run to the ship. Tell all the white men to come and bring a rope!"
I was ... making my way up the crags.—[Page 292].
He sped into the cleft and I moved on. Surmounting a mound in the ice, I could scan the whole surface. A quarter of a mile beyond me, the dark figures of the party crouched beside a long narrow crevasse. As I drew near, the tall figure of the Professor rose and faced me. He made no move to meet me, and when I had approached within a few feet of him, I saw that his hands hung limp at his sides and that he was sobbing. He could not speak, but he pointed to the crevasse. I threw myself at full length upon the ice and peeped over the brink.
A hundred feet below me, on the edge of a block of ice that hung unsteadily upon a mass of débris, lay Daniel. His head was doubled unnaturally forward upon his chest. The trash about him was stained with red. He must have died in an instant.
One look was enough. I sprang to my feet and faced the Professor.
"How did that happen?" I exclaimed. "Good God, man, speak! Don't act like a baby!"
Praed burst out sobbing afresh. It was a moment before he could control his tongue. When he spoke he clinched his hands and gazed blankly up the glacier toward the sun.