Surely, the man was in deadly earnest to
kill me.
But his shot passed harmlessly by me: as indeed was only likely: we
were mere shadows one to the other.
I fired perhaps ten seconds later than he: but in those ten seconds he
stood perfectly revealed to me in clear, lavender light.
An Arctic fire-ball had traversed the sky, showering abroad, a
sulphurous glamour over the snow-landscape. Before the intenser blue of
its momentary shine had passed away, I saw Wilson stagger forward, and
drop. And him and his lantern I buried deep there under the rubble ice.
* * * * *
On the 13th March, nearly three months later, Clark, Mew and I left the
Boreal in latitude 85 deg. 15'.
We had with us thirty-two dogs, three sledges, three kayaks, human
provisions for 112 days, and dog provisions for 40. Being now about 340
miles from the Pole, we hoped to reach it in 43 days, then, turning
south, and feeding living dogs with dead, make either Franz Josef Land
or Spitzbergen, at which latter place we should very likely come up with
a whaler.
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