Had he not conquered, and would not all the world acknowledge his attainments? So he said as he started his motor once more and the whir of it droned a slumber song upon the still air. If the "little widow" could see him on this height! No schoolboy, aping a conquerer in his dreams, could have hugged a thought more tenaciously; it may be added that no schoolboy could have experienced a disappointment so swift. There is a great slope of the snow, free of wood and rock, and running down at an easy angle, perhaps a third of the way, from the summit of the Zaat to the hotel at Vermala. Over this Benny would have flown to reach the chalet; and he never could quite say why he should have bungled in such a place of all others. Bungle he did, none the less; and bending an aileron too sharply, he came round just like a yacht when the helm is put hard down. An ominous lurch, a startled cry, and he knew he was done for. He felt himself dragged downward and still downward, sliding and twisting and turning at last upon his face. Then the soft snow overwhelmed him; it was as though someone put a hand suddenly upon his mouth and defied him to breathe a full breath. His eyes perceived nothing now but a glaring whiteness; he suffered intolerable pain and believed himself to be choking. When the sensation passed, a deadly chill struck him as though his body had turned to solid ice. He understood that he had forced himself upwards by a great effort, and that he was now lying upon his chest. Such an attitude was insupportable and must quickly give place to another which would suffocate him—at least he thought so as he put forth all his strength to lift himself and failed hopelessly at the attempt. In the end he lay back and tried to reason it out. One wing of the two remained to him, and had buried itself deeply in the soft snow; and upon this was the weight of the shell and of the engine. These must drag him down, inch by inch, but down unpityingly to the depths of the crevasse. To-morrow Jack would find him—surely he would search the slopes about the Zaat—and so the end of the story would be written. Well, it was foreordained, and he had done his best. If the curse of failure lay upon his life, better that he were dead. All this, to be sure, was accompanied by a sane review of the situation which such a man might have been expected to make. Benny did not hide it from himself that he had been staring down at the Palace Hotel at the very moment when he lost control of the machine, and he could calculate just what the accident would cost him if he were saved.