Still, there was no telling; and here at least was material for my superfluous vigour, something external and challenging to my hunger for distraction in action. With a huge effort I lifted the body in my arms, and made with it for the lodge. The wind cut at me; the snow, still flying viciously, beat and stung my face. I joyed in the battle, and won triumphant through it into shelter, and laid my burden down by the fire. Then I fetched brandy, and forced a spoonful of it through the biting teeth, and stroked the hairy throat to irritate it to action, and waited and persisted, and persisted and waited. Sometimes, as the day sank, I thought I could detect a shadowy movement on the face; but it was only the illusion of dancing firelight. Sometimes a sound as of a tiny voice calling from a vast depth would startle me, until I identified it for the thin whine of wind in the keyhole. The stiff body never moved, never responded by one thrill to the persistence of my efforts. And presently I gave it up, and withdrew into the scullery to wash my hands, and ponder my unenviable position as the keeper of a mortuary, with no immediate or definite prospect of release. It was while I was there, scrubbing, preoccupied and depressed, that the growth of a sound, unnoticed at first, or attributed to familiar causes, began to impress itself on my hearing. It was like a low continuous babbling at the outset; but, even while I listened, it rose all in a moment into a series of strained and gasping screams. Petrified for an instant, the next I had rushed back into the sitting-room. The pseudo-dead man was writhing and rolling on the hearthrug, and it was by him that those cries of suffering were emitted. His congested veins were recovering their circulation, and his torment was unspeakable. I flung myself on my knees beside him, and caught and chafed his agonised limbs, and poured more brandy down his throat. And by-and-by the devil fled, and his cries sank into moans, and his moans to spasmodic gasps; and when those ceased, I got him by degrees into a chair, where he sat tottery and dribbling, and conning me speechlessly from bloodshot eyes dim with wonder and the spent tragedy of pain. “Rest quiet now,” I said, “and don’t attempt to speak or move. You needn’t worry your brain either about what brought you here. It’s quite simple. I stumbled on you by chance, sleeping to your death in a snowdrift, and I fished you out of it and carried you to my house here, which happened to be close by. Don’t answer, but if you think you could stand more brandy, move your head, and I will get you a glass, stiff and hot.” He nodded feebly once or twice. I disposed him to his safety, fetched a kettle, water, and the condiments, and in a little had brewed him a good stinging jorum. “Now,” I said, “I am going to pull the sofa there to the fire, put you on it, and leave you to sleep.”