o; of Ayesha
demanding Leo's life at my hands. Blackness and silence, through which I
could only hear the cracking of my muscles.

Suddenly in the blackness a flash, and in the silence a sound. The flash
was the flash of a knife which Leo had drawn. He was hacking at the cord
with it fiercely, fiercely, to make an end. And the sound was that of
the noise he made, a ghastly noise, half shout of defiance and half yell
of terror, as at the third stroke it parted.

I saw it part. The tough hide was half cut through, and its severed
portion curled upwards and downwards like the upper and lower lips of an
angry dog, whilst that which was unsevered stretched out slowly, slowly,
till it grew quite thin. Then it snapped, so that the rope flew upwards
and struck me across the face like the lash of a whip.

Another instant and I heard a crackling, thudding sound. Leo had struck
the ground below. Leo was dead, a mangled mass of flesh and bone as I
had pictured him. I could not bear it. My nerve and human dignity came
back. I would not wait until, my strength exhausted, I slid from my
perch as a wounded bird falls from a tree. No, I would follow him at
once, of my own act.

I let my arms fall against my sides, and rejoiced in the relief from
pain that the movement gave me. Then balanced upon my heels, I stood
upright, took my last look at the sky, muttered my last prayer. For an
instant I remained thus poised.

Shouting, "I come," I raised my hands above my head and dived as a
bather dives, dived into the black gulf beneath.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE GATE

Oh! that rush through space! Folk falling thus are supposed to lose
consciousness, but I can assert that this is not true. Never were my
wits and perceptions more lively than while I travelled from that broken
glacier to the ground, and never did a short journey seem to take a
longer time. I saw the white floor, like some living thing, leaping up
through empty air to meet me, then--_finis!_

Crash! Why, what was this? I still lived. I was in water, for I could
feel its chill, and going down, down, till I thought I should never rise
again. But rise I did, though my lungs were nigh to bursting first. As I
floated up towards the top I remembered the crash, which told me that
I had passed through ice. Therefore I should meet ice at the surface
again. Oh! to think that after surviving so much I must be drowned like
a kitten and beneath a sheet of ice. My hands touched it. Ther