A thrill of gratitude to Fortune for so kindly a freak had hardly passed through his mind before his eye sought a depression in the snow just beyond.

He saw now that a man was lying there.

The head resting upon an arm was but slightly covered with snow; the whole form had sunk by its own heat into a cavity like a grave.
Courthope lifted the head; the face was that of the man whom he had seen yesterday upon the river.

The arms, when he raised them, fell again to the snow like lead, yet he perceived that life was not extinct.

Even in the frost the odour of rum was to be perceived, and breath, although so feeble as to be unseen, still passed in and out of the tightly-drawn nostrils.