"You would play that game with me?" he asked, in a mechanical voice.

"It would give me great pleasure." The voice had a strange, ironical
tone. "It is a grand sport--as one would take a run at a crevasse and
clear it, or fall. If we both fall, we are in good company; if you fall,
I have the greater joy of escape; if I fall, you have the same joy."

"I am ready," was the answer. "But let us eat first."

A great fire burned in the chimney, for the night was cool. It filled
the room with a gracious heat and with huge, comfortable shadows. Here
and there on the wall a tin cup flashed back the radiance of the fire,
the barrel of a gun glistened soberly along a rafter, and the long, wiry
hair of an otter-skin in the corner sent out little needles of light.
Upon the fire a pot was simmering, and a good savour came from it. A
wind went lilting by outside the but in tune with the singing of the
kettle. The ticking of a huge, old-fashioned repeating-watch on the wall
was in unison with these.

Dubarre rose from the table, threw himself upon the little pile of otter-
skins, and lay watching Villiard and mechanically studying the little
room.

Villiard took the four glasses filled with the wine and laid them on a
shelf against the wall, then began to put the table in order for their
supper, and to take the pot from the fire.

Dubarre noticed that just above where the glasses stood on the shelf a
crucifix was hanging, and that red crystal sparkled in the hands and feet