“We must risk it, or I will risk it.  Look, the light has faded;” and there at least he was right, for undoubtedly it had.  The night was as black as pitch.

“Let’s talk it over to-morrow,” I said, and went back to the tent, for I was sleepy and incredulous, but Leo sat on by the mouth of the cave.

At dawn I awoke and found breakfast already cooked.

“I must start early,” Leo explained.

“Are you mad?” I asked.  “How can we camp on that place?”

“I don’t know, but I am going.  I must go, Horace.”

“Which means that we both must go.  But how about the yak?”

“Where we can climb, it can follow,” he answered.

So we strapped the tent and other baggage, including a good supply of cooked meat, upon the beast’s back, and started.  The tramp was long since we were obliged to make some detours to avoid slopes of frozen snow in which, on our previous ascents, we had cut footholds with an axe, for up these the laden animal could not clamber.  Reaching the summit at length, we dug a hole, and there pitched the tent, piling the excavated snow about its sides.  By this time it began to grow dark, and having descended into the tent, yak and all, we ate our food and waited.

Oh! what cold was that.  The frost was fearful, and at this height a wind blew whose icy breath passed through all our wrappings, and seemed to burn our flesh beneath as though with hot irons.  It was fortunate that we had brought the yak, for without the warmth from its shaggy body I believe that we should have perished, even in our tent.  For some hours we watched, as indeed we must, since to sleep might mean to die, yet saw nothing save the lonely stars, and heard nothing in that awful silence, for here even the wind made no noise as it slid across the snows.  Accustomed as I was to such exposure, my faculties began to grow numb and my eyes to shut, when suddenly Leo said—­“Look, below the red star!”

I looked, and there high in the sky was the same curious glow which we had seen upon the previous night.  There was more than this indeed, for beneath it, almost on a line with us and just above the crests of the intervening peaks, appeared a faint sheet of fire and revealed against it, something black.  Whilst we watched, the fire widened, spread upwards and grew in power and intensity.  Now against its flaming background the black object became clearly visible, and lo! it was the top of a soaring pillar surmounted by a loop.  Yes, we could see its every outline.  It was the crux ansata, the Symbol of Life itself.