o rest.

"We must look," said Leo presently.

But the question was, how to do this. Indeed, there was only one way,
to hang over the bend and discover what lay below. We read each other's
thought without the need of words, and I made a motion as though I would
start.

"No," said Leo, "I am younger and stronger than you. Come, help me," and
he began to fasten the end of his rope to a strong, projecting point of
ice. "Now," he said, "hold my ankles."

It seemed an insanity, but there was nothing else to be done, so, fixing
my heels in a niche, I grasped them and slowly he slid forward till his
body vanished to the middle. What he saw does not matter, for I saw it
all afterwards, but what happened was that suddenly all his great weight
came upon my arms with such a jerk that his ankles were torn from my
grip.

Or, who knows! perhaps in my terror I loosed them, obeying the natural
impulse which prompts a man to save his own life. If so, may I be
forgiven, but had I held on, I must have been jerked into the abyss.
Then the rope ran out and remained taut.

"Leo!" I screamed, "Leo!" and I heard a muffled voice saying, as I
thought, "Come." What it really said was--"Don't come." But indeed--and
may it go to my credit--I did not pause to think, but face outwards,
just as I was sitting, began to slide and scramble down the ice.

In two seconds I had reached the curve, in three I was over it. Beneath
was what I can only describe as a great icicle broken off short, and
separated from the cliff by about four yards of space. This icicle was
not more than fifteen feet in length and sloped outwards, so that my
descent was not sheer. Moreover, at the end of it the trickling of
water, or some such accident, had worn away the ice, leaving a little
ledge as broad, perhaps, as a man's hand. There were roughnesses on the
surface below the curve, upon which my clothing caught, also I gripped
them desperately with my fingers. Thus it came about that I slid down
quite gently and, my heels landing upon the little ledge, remained
almost upright, with outstretched arms--like a person crucified to a
cross of ice.

Then I saw everything, and the sight curdled the blood within my veins.
Hanging to the rope, four or five feet below the broken point, was Leo,
out of reach of it, and out of reach of the cliff; as he hung turning
slowly round and round, much as--for in a dreadful, inconsequent fashion
the absurd similarity struck me even then--