aced for the first time in front of a mirror, as I made the great
image move about and repeat any odd motion that I might make. On a later
occasion I saw a spectre, when the sun was up, with a circular rainbow
round it. The moonlight effect differed from this, in that the colors of
the rainbow were but faintly distinguishable.

The Rongba had fallen exhausted. I felt so faint with the unusual
pressure on my lungs that, despite all the efforts to resist it, I also
collapsed on the snow. The coolie and I, shivering pitifully, shared the
same blanket in order to keep warm. Both of us were seized with
irresistible sleepiness. I fought hard against it, for I well knew that
if my eyelids once closed they would almost certainly remain so forever.
The Rongba was fast asleep. I summoned my last atom of vitality to keep
my eyes open. The bitter wind hissed by us. How that hiss still echoes
in my ears! The Rongba crouched down, moaning through chattering teeth.
His sudden shudders showed that he was in great pain. It seemed only
common charity to let him have the entire blanket, which was in any case
too small for both. I wrapped it tightly round his head and his
doubled-up body. The exertion was too much for me. In absolute
exhaustion I fell back on the snow. I made a last desperate effort to
look at the glittering stars ... my sight became dim....

How long this semi-consciousness lasted I do not know. "This is
terrible! Doctor! Kachi!" I tried to speak. My voice seemed choked in my
throat. Was what I saw before me real? On the vast white sheet of snow
Kachi and the doctor lay motionless, like statues of ice, as if frozen
to death. In my nightmare I tried to raise them. They were rigid. I
knelt beside them, calling them, and striving with all my might to bring
them back to life. Half dazed, I turned to look for Bijesing, and, as I
did so, all sense of vitality seemed to freeze within me. I saw myself
enclosed in a quickly contracting tomb of transparent ice. I felt that
I, too, would shortly be frozen to death like my companions. My legs, my
arms, were already icy. Horror-stricken as I was at the approach of such
a ghastly death, I felt a languor and sleepiness far from unpleasant.
Should I let myself go, choosing rest and peace rather than effort, or
should I make a last struggle to save myself? The ice seemed to close in
more and more every moment. I was suffocating.

I tried to scream, to force myself through the ice, which