ble into the night. He could not
contain himself any longer, it seemed. To make it carry even beyond an
ordinary cry he interrupted its rhythm by shaking the palm of his hand
before his mouth.

"That's for Defago," he said, looking down at the other two with a
queer, defiant laugh, "for it's my belief"--the sandwiched oaths may be
omitted--"that my ole partner's not far from us at this very minute."

There was a vehemence and recklessness about his performance that made
Simpson, too, start to his feet in amazement, and betrayed even the
doctor into letting the pipe slip from between his lips. Hank's face was
ghastly, but Cathcart's showed a sudden weakness--a loosening of all his
faculties, as it were. Then a momentary anger blazed into his eyes, and
he too, though with deliberation born of habitual self-control, got upon
his feet and faced the excited guide. For this was unpermissible,
foolish, dangerous, and he meant to stop it in the bud.

What might have happened in the next minute or two one may speculate
about, yet never definitely know, for in the instant of profound silence
that followed Hank's roaring voice, and as though in answer to it,
something went past through the darkness of the sky overhead at terrific
speed--something of necessity very large, for it displaced much air,
while down between the trees there fell a faint and windy cry of a human
voice, calling in tones of indescribable anguish and appeal--

"Oh, oh! This fiery height! Oh, oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of
fire!"

White to the very edge of his shirt, Hank looked stupidly about him like
a child. Dr. Cathcart uttered some kind of unintelligible cry, turning
as he did so with an instinctive movement of blind terror towards the
protection of the tent, then halting in the act as though frozen.
Simpson, alone of the three, retained his presence of mind a little. His
own horror was too deep to allow of any immediate reaction. He had heard
that cry before.

Turning to his stricken companions, he said almost calmly--

"That's exactly the cry I heard--the very words he used!"

Then, lifting his face to the sky, he cried aloud, "Defago, Defago! Come
down here to us! Come down--!"

And before there was time for anybody to take definite action one way or
another, there came the sound of something dropping heavily between the
trees, striking the branches on the way down, and landing with a
dreadful thud upon the frozen earth below. The cra