Praed turned toward him. I couldn't see his face, but the leader fell back.
"What's the matter?" he said. "What is it?"
"It's an accident," I put in. "Daniel has fallen and is dead."
Then Praed showed the first sign of manliness that I had ever seen in him.
"It is my fault," he proclaimed. "I am to blame for his death. I demand the right to fetch up his body."
In pity for his evident wretchedness, the leader consented. We lowered the Professor by a rope to the heap of trash. But as his weight bore upon the block where the body lay, the ice tilted and fell. Daniel fell with it. The ringing of icicles on either wall of the glacier lessened to a tinkling; the tinkling merged into a sustained harmonic, like the final note of some violin sonata. The tone died away. No final crash followed. The utmost depths were beyond our hearing.
Drawn by Henry McCarter.
I should have fallen but someone held me up—it was Daniel.—[Page 295].