r day. God help the poor
creatures at the fort, and God help us too!"

"Amen!" said Gedge to himself; and as the warmth began to steal through
his half-frozen limbs he lay gazing at the distant glow of the enemy's
fire far away below, till it grew more and more faint, and then seemed
to die right out--seemed, for it was well replenished again and again
through the night, and sent up flames and sparks as if to give a signal
far away, for the supply of fir-branches was abundant, and the fire rose
in spirals up into the frosty sky.

Bracy too lay watching the distant blaze till it grew dim to his
half-closed eyes. A calmer feeling of despair had come over him, and
the feeling that he had done all that man could do softened the mental
agony from which he had suffered. This was to be the end, he felt; and,
if ever their remains were found, those who knew them would deal gently
with their memory. For the inevitable future stared him blankly in the
face. Gedge would strive his utmost to obtain help, but he felt that
the poor fellow's efforts would be in vain, and that, if they lived
through the night, many hours would not elapse before they perished from
hunger and the cold.

The feeling of weary mental confusion that stole over him then was
welcome; and, weak from the agony he had suffered, he made an effort to
rouse himself from the torpor that, Nature-sent, was lulling the pangs
in his injured limb, but let his eyelids droop lower and lower till the
distant light was shut out, and then cold, misery, and despair passed
away, for all was blank.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The specks of golden light were beginning to show on the high peaks, and
gradually grew brighter till it was sunny morning far up on the icy
eminences, chilly dawn where the two sheepskin-covered figures lay
prone, and night still where the fire was blazing by the pine-forest,
and the great body of the enemy had bivouacked.

The two motionless figures were covered by a thick rime frost, which
looked grey in the dim light, not a crystal as yet sending off a
scintillation; and tiny spicules of ice had matted the moustache and
beard of Bracy where his breath had condensed during the night, sealing
them to the woolly coverlet he had drawn up close; while a strange
tingling sensation attacked his eyes as he opened them suddenly, waking
from a morning dream of defending the fort and giving orders to his men