I aimed my gun for his heart, and I touched the trigger. He held up his
left hand.

'Stop,' he said, 'stop.' (He was one of the coolest of men ordinarily.)
'There is no gallows on the _Boreal_, but Clark could easily rig one for
you. I want to kill you, too, because there are no criminal courts up
here, and it would be doing a good action for my country. But not
here--not now. Listen to me--don't shoot. Later we can meet, when all is
ready, so that no one may be the wiser, and fight it all out.'

As he spoke I let the gun drop. It was better so. I knew that he was
much the best shot on the ship, and I an indifferent one: but I did not
care, I did not care, if I was killed.

It is a dim, inclement land, God knows: and the spirit of darkness and
distraction is there.

Twenty hours later we met behind the great saddle-shaped hummock, some
six miles to the S.E. of the ship. We had set out at different times, so
that no one might suspect. And each brought a ship's-lantern.

Wilson had dug an ice-grave near the hummock, leaving at its edge a
heap of brash-ice and snow to fill it. We stood separated by an interval
of perhaps seventy yards, the grave between us, each with a lantern at
his feet.

Even so we were mere shadowy apparitions one to the other. The air
glowered very drearily, and present in my inmost soul were the frills of
cold. A chill moon, a mere abstraction of light, seemed to hang far
outside the universe. The temperature was at 55° below zero, so that we