But it lasted, I believe, some seconds only: I ran and got a shot
into the bear's brain, and Maitland leapt up with a rent down his face.
But singular destiny! Whatever I did--if I did evil, if I did good--the
result was the same: tragedy dark and sinister! Poor Maitland was doomed
that voyage, and my rescue of his life was the means employed to make
his death the more certain.
I think that I have already written, some pages back, about a man
called Scotland, whom I met at Cambridge. He was always talking about
certain 'Black' and 'White' beings, and their contention for the earth.
We others used to call him the black-and-white mystery-man, because, one
day--but that is no matter now. Well, with regard to all that, I have a
fancy, a whim of the mind--quite wide of the truth, no doubt--but I have
it here in my brain, and I will write it down now. It is this: that
there may have been some sort of arrangement, or understanding, between
Black and White, as in the case of Adam and the fruit, that, should
mankind force his way to the Pole and the old forbidden secret biding
there, then some mishap should not fail to overtake the race of man;
that the White, being kindly disposed to mankind, did not wish this to
occur, and intended, for the sake of the race, to destroy our entire
expedition before it reached; and that the Black, knowing that the White
meant to do this, and by what means, used me--_me_!--to outwit this
design, first of all working that I should be one of the party of four
to leave the ship on ski.
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