My doom appeared fixed.

I _must_ fall.

There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below.
When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke.

But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness.

I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense.