espise $175,000,000? _I_
want to be in at the death, and I mean to be, if I can. We are all more
or less self-interested.'

'Look,' I whispered--'a bear.'

It was a mother and cub: and with determined trudge she came wagging her
low head, having no doubt smelled the dogs. We separated on the
instant, doubling different ways behind ice-boulders, wanting her to go
on nearer the shore, before killing; but, passing close, she spied, and
bore down at a trot upon me. I fired into her neck, and at once, with a
roar, she turned tail, making now straight in Maitland's direction. I
saw him run out from cover some hundred yards away, aiming his long-gun:
but no report followed: and in half a minute he was under her fore-paws,
she striking out slaps at the barking, shrinking dogs. Maitland roared
for my help: and at that moment, I, poor wretch, in far worse plight
than he, stood shivering in ague: for suddenly one of those wrangles of
the voices of my destiny was filling my bosom with loud commotion, one
urging me to fly to Maitland's aid, one passionately commanding me be
still. But it lasted, I believe, some seconds only: I ran and got a shot
into the bear's brain, and Maitland leapt up with a rent down his face.

But singular destiny! Whatever I did--if I did evil, if I did good--the
result was the same: tragedy dark and sinister! Poor Maitland was doomed
that voyage, and my rescue of his life was the means employed to make
his death the more certain.

I think that I have already written, some pages back, about a man
called Scotland, whom I met at Cambridge. He was always talking about
certain 'Black' and 'White' beings, and their contention for the earth.
We others used to call him the black-and-white mystery-man, because, one
day--but that is no matter now. Well, with regard to all that, I have a
fancy, a whim of the mind--quite wide of the truth, no doubt--but I have
it here in my brain, and I will write it down now. It is this: that
there may have been some sort of arrangement, or understanding, between
Black and White, as in the case of Adam and the fruit, that, should
mankind force his way to the Pole and the old forbidden secret biding
there, then some mishap should not fail to overtake the race of man;
that the White, being kindly disposed to mankind, did not wish this to
occur, and intended, for the sake of the race, to destroy our entire
expedition before it reached; and that the Black, knowing that the White
meant