That thin line summed up all. Somewhere below was the beginning of
things; somewhere above, beyond the roar and traffic, was the end of
things; and for that end they strove.
And still Frona held the egg-shell with a hand of steel. What they
gained they held, and fought for more, inch by inch, _dip and lift_;
and all would have been well but for the flutter of Tommy's soul. A
cake of ice, sucked beneath by the current, rose under his paddle with
a flurry of foam, turned over its toothed edge, and was dragged back
into the depths. And in that sight he saw himself, hair streaming
upward and drowned hands clutching emptiness, going feet first, down
and down. He stared, wide-eyed, at the portent, and his poised paddle
refused to strike. On the instant the fissure grinned in their faces,
and the next they were below the bluffs, drifting gently in the eddy.
Frona lay, head thrown back, sobbing at the sun; amidships Corliss
sprawled panting; and forward, choking and gasping and nerveless, the
Scotsman drooped his head upon his knees. La Bijou rubbed softly
against the rim-ice and came to rest. The rainbow-wall hung above like
a fairy pile; the sun, flung backward from innumerable facets, clothed
it in jewelled splendor. Silvery streams tinkled down its crystal
slopes; and in its clear depths seemed to unfold, veil on veil, the
secrets of life and death and mortal striving,--vistas of
pale-shimmering azure opening like dream-visions, and promising, down
there in the great cool heart, infinite rest, infinite cessation and
rest.
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