"Jack! Jack! Keep awake! We'll win out yet if you do."
"All right, old man: my head buzzes awf'ly, Where are we? What are you
doing?"
"We're going down the hill. Don't leave go of me whatever you do, and
oh, keep awake."
"Serene," said Senior, closing his eyes again peacefully.
With a sob of horror and despair, Acton lurched down the hill, dragging
his companion with him. He kept repeating, as though it were a formula:
"Down the slope and bear to the left" again and again.
What the next half-hour held of misery, horror, and utter despair, Acton
cannot, even now, recall without a shudder. They stumbled and staggered
downwards like drunken men. The snow blinded him, and the dragging
weight of Senior on his arm was an aching agony, from which, above all
things, he must not free himself.
Then, as the very climax to hopeless despair, Senior rolled heavily
forward and lay prone, as helpless as a log, his face buried in the
snow! His cap had fallen off, and Acton watched the black curls
whitening in the storm.
How long he remained there, crouched before the motionless body, he does
not know; only that he tried many times to shake the dying youth from
the terrible torpor in vain. Senior breathed heavily, and that was all.
All hope had died in Acton's breast. He threw himself forward beside
his friend, and sobbed, with his face in the snow.
A sound reached Acton's ears which brought him to his feet with a bound.
He placed his hand to his ear, and sent his very soul to the effort to
fix the sound again, above the roar of the wind.
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