A smile--a horrid, deforming, unnatural smile--spread slowly, stealthily, devilishly over his face.

He left the fire; he put the ax away softly in a corner; he sat down in his old place, deliberately self-abandoned to a frenzy of vindictive joy.

He had found the man! There, at the end of the world--there, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against starvation and death, he had found the man! The minutes passed.
He became conscious, on a sudden, of a freezing stream of air pouring into the room.
He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut.

A man was behind him.

Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Crayford's shoulder.
Was it--could it be--the man who had carved the letters on the plank?
Yes! Frank Aldersley!.