snow, as that would have merely injured the
inside of my mouth, and frozen the skin of my lips. This feeling did
not however last long. It was followed by a powerful sense of
drowsiness.

This I knew to be the fatal premonitory symptom, and strove against it
with all my power. The better to resist it I began to talk aloud to
myself.

"Come now, my boy, you mustn't give way to _that_. It is death, you
know. Hold up! Be a man! Act as Lumley would have acted in similar
circumstances. Dear Lumley! How he would run to help me if he only
knew!"

Suddenly the words, "In Me is thy help," seemed to sound in my very
ears. I stopped to listen, and was partly roused, but soon hurried on
again.

"Yes, yes," I exclaimed aloud, "I know the text well," but the words had
scarcely left my lips when I stumbled and fell. Owing to my sinking
powers I had failed to keep the centre of the track; my right snow-shoe
had caught on the edge of it and tumbled me into the soft snow.

How shall I describe the delicious feeling of profound rest that ensued
when I found myself prone and motionless? Equally impossible is it to
describe the agonising struggles that I made to induce my unwilling
spirit to rouse my listless body. Those who have striven in
semi-consciousness to throw off the awful lethargy of nightmare may have
some conception of my feelings. I knew, even then, that it was the
critical moment--the beginning of the end. In a burst of anxiety I
began to pray--to shout with all my strength--for deliverance. The
effort and the strange sound of my own voice roused me.

I staggered to my feet and was able to continue my walk. Being somewhat
brighter than I had been before the tumble, I perceived that the
circular track was by that time beaten hard enough to bear me up without
snow-shoes, so I put them off and walked with much more ease.

From this point however my mind became so confused that I can give no
reliable account of what followed. I was conscious at various periods
during that dreadful night of becoming alive to several incidents and
states of mind. I recollect falling more than once, as I had fallen
before, and of experiencing, more than once, that painful struggle
against what I may style mental and physical inertia. I remember
breaking out frequently into loud importunate prayer, and being
impressed with a feeling of reviving energy at such times. Sometimes a
text of Scripture seemed to flash before my