rough all his despair
he had entertained a germ of hope, that grew apace, rained upon by
his brother's blood.

He strove on as best he might, wrung now by an access of hope, now
of despair, in agony to reach the end, however terrible, sick with
the aching of the toiled miles that deferred it.

And the light went lingering out of the sky, giving place to
uncertain stars.

He came to the finish.

Two bodies lay in a narrow place. Christian's was one, but the
other beyond not White Fell's. There where the footsteps ended lay
a great white wolf.

At the sight Sweyn's strength was blasted; body and soul he was
struck down grovelling.

The stars had grown sure and intense before he stirred from where
he had dropped prone. Very feebly he crawled to his dead brother,
and laid his hands upon him, and crouched so, afraid to look or
stir farther.

Cold, stiff, hours dead. Yet the dead body was his only shelter
and stay in that most dreadful hour. His soul, stripped bare of
all sceptic comfort, cowered, shivering, naked, abject; and the
living clung to the dead out of piteous need for grace from the
soul that had passed away.

He rose to his knees, lifting the body. Christian had fallen face
forward in the snow, with his arms flung up and wide, and so had
the frost made him rigid: strange, ghastly, unyielding to Sweyn's
lifting, so that he laid him down again and crouched above, with
his arms fast round him, and a low heart-wrung groan.

[Illustration: Sweyn's Finding]

When at last he found force to raise his brother's body and gather
it in his arms, tight clasped to his breast, he tried to face the
Thing that lay beyond. The sight set his limbs in a palsy with
horror and dread. His senses had failed and fainted in utter
cowardice, but for the strength that came from holding dead
Christian in his arms, enabling him to compel his eyes to endure
the sight, and take into the brain the complete aspect of the
Thing. No wound, only blood stains on the feet. The great grim
jaws had a savage grin, though dead-stiff. And his kiss: he could
bear it no longer, and turned away, nor ever looked again.

And the dead man in his arms, knowing the full horror, had
followed and faced it for his sake; had suffered agony and death
for his sake; in the neck was the deep death gash, one arm and
both hands were dark with frozen blood, for his sake! Dead he knew
him, as in life he had not known him, to give the right meed of
love and wo