with
him.

"I promised to guide you to your journey's end," said Obenreizer, "and I
have kept my promise. The journey of your life ends here. Nothing can
prolong it. You are sleeping as you stand."

"You are a villain. What have you done to me?"

"You are a fool. I have drugged you. You are doubly a fool, for I
drugged you once before upon the journey, to try you. You are trebly a
fool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a few moments I shall take
those proofs against the thief and forger from your insensible body."

The entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but its fatal hold
upon him was so sure that, even while he heard those words, he stupidly
wondered which of them had been wounded, and whose blood it was that he
saw sprinkled on the snow.

"What have I done to you," he asked, heavily and thickly, "that you
should be--so base--a murderer?"

"Done to me? You would have destroyed me, but that you have come to your
journey's end. Your cursed activity interposed between me, and the time
I had counted on in which I might have replaced the money. Done to me?
You have come in my way--not once, not twice, but again and again and
again. Did I try to shake you off in the beginning, or no? You were not
to be shaken off. Therefore you die here."

Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, tried to
pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried
to stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in vain! He stumbled,
and fell heavily forward on the brink of the deep chasm.

Stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil before his eyes,
his sense of hearing deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that,
supporting himself on his hands, he saw his enemy standing calmly over
him, and heard him speak. "You call me murderer," said Obenreizer, with
a grim laugh. "The name matters very little. But at least I have set my
life against yours, for I am surrounded by dangers, and may never make my
way out of this place. The _Tourmente_ is rising again. The snow is on
the whirl. I must have the papers now. Every moment has my life in it."

"Stop!" cried Vendale, in a terrible voice, staggering up with a last
flash of fire breaking out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at
his breast, in both of his. "Stop! Stand away from me! God bless my
Marguerite! Happily she will never know how I died. Stand off from me,
and let me look at your murd