“Ah, Tom-ee!” Salim Awad said, anxiously. “Run! Jump! You weel have—what say?—cotch seek. Ay—cotch thee seek. Eh? R-r-run, Tom-ee!” “Ay, ay,” Tommy Hand answered. “I’ll be jumpin’ about a bit, I’m thinkin’, t’ keep warm—as me father bid me do.” “Queek!” cried Salim, laughing. “Ay,” Tommy muttered; “as me father bid me do.” “Jump, Tom-ee!” Salim clapped his hands. “Hi, hi! Dance, Tom-ee!” In the beginning Tommy was deliberate and ponderous; but as his limbs were suppled—and when his blood ran warm again—the dance quickened; for Salim Awad slapped strangely inspiring encouragement, and with droning “la, la!” and sharp “hi, hi!” excited the boy to mad leaps—and madder still. “La, la!” and “Hi, hi!” There was a mystery in it. Tommy leaped high and fast. “La, la!” and “Hi, hi!” In response to the strange Eastern song the fisherboy’s grotesque dance went on.... Came then the appalling catastrophe: the pan of rotten, brittle salt-water ice cracked under the lad; and it fell in two parts, which, in the heave of the sea, at once drifted wide of each other. The one part was heavy, commodious; the other a mere unstable fragment of what the whole had been: and it was upon the fragment that Salim Awad and Tommy Hand were left. Instinctively they sprawled on the ice, which was now overweighted—unbalanced. Their faces were close; and as they lay rigid—while the ice wavered and the water covered it—they looked into each other’s eyes.... There was, not room for both. “Tom-ee,” Salim Awad gasped; his breath indrawn, quivering, “I am—mus’—go!” The boy stretched out his hand—an instinctive movement, the impulse of a brave and generous heart—to stop the sacrifice. “Hush!” Salim Awad whispered, hurriedly, lifting a finger to command peace. “I am—for one queek time—have theenk. Hush, Tom-ee!” Tommy Hand was silent. * * * * *