his made no noise.

To add to his difficulty, a small bright moon shone brilliantly just
ahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that was always there,
unremitting, from which there was no escape. He wanted so to come to
the end--he had had enough. Yet he did not sleep.

He surged painfully up, sometimes having to cross a slope of black
rock, that was blown bare of snow. Here he was afraid of falling, very
much afraid of falling. And high up here, on the crest, moved a wind
that almost overpowered him with a sleep-heavy iciness. Only it was not
here, the end, and he must still go on. His indefinite nausea would not
let him stay.

Having gained one ridge, he saw the vague shadow of something higher in
front. Always higher, always higher. He knew he was following the track
towards the summit of the slopes, where was the marienhutte, and the
descent on the other side. But he was not really conscious. He only
wanted to go on, to go on whilst he could, to move, to keep going, that
was all, to keep going, until it was finished. He had lost all his
sense of place. And yet in the remaining instinct of life, his feet
sought the track where the skis had gone.

He slithered down a sheer snow slope. That frightened him. He had no
alpenstock, nothing. But having come safely to rest, he began to walk
on, in the illuminated darkness. It was as cold as sleep. He was
between two ridges, in a hollow. So he swerved. Should he climb the
other ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his
being was stretched! He would perhaps climb the ridge. The snow was
firm and simple. He went along. There was something standing out of the
snow. He approached, with dimmest curiosity.

It was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little sloping
hood, at the top of a pole. He sheered away. Somebody was going to
murder him. He had a great dread of being murdered. But it was a dread
which stood outside him, like his own ghost.

Yet why be afraid? It was bound to happen. To be murdered! He looked
round in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of the
upper world. He was bound to be murdered, he could see it. This was the
moment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape.

Lord Jesus, was it then bound to be--Lord Jesus! He could feel the blow
descending, he knew he was murdered. Vaguely wandering forward, his
hands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for the
moment when he w