s very self's self, crushed by the engine he himself had set in
motion, shattered by the recoil of the very force that for so long had
dwelt within himself. Nothing in all the world could have broken him but
that. Danger, however great, could not have cowed him; circumstances,
however hopeless, could not have made him despair; obstacles, however
vast, could not have turned him back. Himself was the only Enemy that
could have conquered; his own power the only one to which he would have
yielded. And fate had so ordered it that this one Enemy of all others,
this one power of all others, had turned upon and rent him. The mystery
of it! The terror of it! Why had he never known? How was it he had never
guessed? What was this ruthless monster, this other self, that for so
long had slept within his flesh, strong with his better strength,
feeding and growing big with that he fancied was the best in him, that
tricked him with his noblest emotion--the love of a good woman--lured
him to a moment of weakness, then suddenly, and without warning, leaped
at his throat and struck him to the ground?

He had committed one of those offences which the law does not reach, but
whose punishment is greater than any law can inflict. Retribution had
been fearfully swift. His career, Ferriss, and Lloyd--ambition,
friendship, and the love of a woman--had been a trinity of dominant
impulses in his life. Abruptly, almost in a single instant, he had lost
them all, had thrown them away. He could never get them back. Bennett
started sharply. What was this on his cheek; what was this that suddenly
dimmed his eyes? Had it actually come to this? And this was
he--Bennett--the same man who had commanded the Freja expedition. No, it
was not the same man. That man was dead. He ground his teeth, shaken
with the violence of emotions that seemed to be tearing his heart to
pieces. Lost, lost to him forever! Bennett bowed his head upon his
folded arms. Through his clenched teeth his words seemed almost wrenched
from him, each word an agony.

"Dick--Dick, old man, you're gone, gone from me, and it was I who did
it; and Lloyd, she too--she--God help me!"

Then the tension snapped. The great, massive frame shook with grief from
head to heel, and the harsh, angular face, with its salient jaw and
hard, uncouth lines, was wet with the first tears he had ever known.

He was roused at length by a sudden movement on the part of the dog.
Kamiska had risen to her feet with