Below him the Saskatchewan lay white and
silent; beyond it he could see the dark edge of the forest, and far,
far, beyond that, hovering low in the sky, the polar star. It burned
faintly now, almost like a thousand other stars that he saw, and the
aurora was only a fading glow.
Something rose up in Jan's throat and choked him, and he closed his
eyes, with his fingers clutching Kazan's head. In spite of the battle
that he had fought, his mind swept back--back through the endless
silent spaces, over mountains and through forests, swift, resistless,
until once more the polar star flashed in all its glory over his head,
and he was at Lac Bain. He did not know that he was surrendering to
hunger, exhaustion, the cumulative effects of his thirteen days' fight
in the forests. He was with Melisse again, with the old violin, with
the things that they had loved. He forgot in these moments that there
was another in the room; he heard no sound as the man shifted his
position so that he looked steadily at him and Kazan. It was the low,
heart-broken sob of grief that fell from his own lips that awakened
him again to a consciousness of the present.
He jerked himself erect, and found Kazan with his fangs gleaming. The
stranger had risen. He was standing close to him, leaning down,
staring at him in the dim lamplight, and as Jan lifted his own eyes he
knew that in the pale, eager face of the man above him there was
written a grief which might have been a reflection of his own.
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