We read each other's thought without the need of words, and I made a motion as though I would start.
"No," said Leo, "I am younger and stronger than you.

Come, help me," and he began to fasten the end of his rope to a strong, projecting point of ice.

"Now," he said, "hold my ankles." It seemed an insanity, but there was nothing else to be done, so, fixing my heels in a niche, I grasped them and slowly he slid forward till his body vanished to the middle.

What he saw does not matter, for I saw it all afterwards, but what happened was that suddenly all his great weight came upon my arms with such a jerk that his ankles were torn from my grip.
Or, who knows! perhaps in my terror I loosed them, obeying the natural impulse which prompts a man to save his own life.

If so, may I be forgiven, but had I held on, I must have been jerked into the abyss.
Then the rope ran out and remained taut.
"Leo!" I screamed, "Leo!" and I heard a muffled voice saying, as I thought, "Come." What it really said was--"Don't come." But indeed--and may it go to my credit--I did not pause to think, but face outwards, just as I was sitting, began to slide and scramble down the ice.
In two seconds I had reached the curve, in three I was over it.