The stars had grown sure and intense before he stirred from where
he had dropped prone. Very feebly he crawled to his dead brother,
and laid his hands upon him, and crouched so, afraid to look or
stir farther.

Cold, stiff, hours dead. Yet the dead body was his only shelter
and stay in that most dreadful hour. His soul, stripped bare of
all sceptic comfort, cowered, shivering, naked, abject; and the
living clung to the dead out of piteous need for grace from the
soul that had passed away.

He rose to his knees, lifting the body. Christian had fallen face
forward in the snow, with his arms flung up and wide, and so had
the frost made him rigid: strange, ghastly, unyielding to Sweyn's
lifting, so that he laid him down again and crouched above, with
his arms fast round him, and a low heart-wrung groan.

[Illustration: Sweyn's Finding]

When at last he found force to raise his brother's body and gather
it in his arms, tight clasped to his breast, he tried to face the
Thing that lay beyond. The sight set his limbs in a palsy with
horror and dread. His senses had failed and fainted in utter
cowardice, but for the strength that came from holding dead
Christian in his arms, enabling him to compel his eyes to endure
the sight, and take into the brain the complete aspect of the
Thing. No wound, only blood stains on the feet. The great grim
jaws had a savage grin, though dead-stiff. And his kiss: he could
bear it no longer, and turned away, nor ever looked again.