Up ahead, Lowell dropped to one knee. He scanned the pond ahead of them with his glass. His lips were trembling with fear. At first he thought he saw some boys ice fishing. But then, as he turned the spyglass, he could see the sallow face of his student Pliny Mead: only his face.

Mead’s head was visible from a narrow opening cut into the lake of ice. The rest of his naked body was concealed by the ice water, under which his feet were bound. His teeth chattered violently. His tongue was curled up in the back of his mouth. Mead’s bare arms were stretched forward on the ice and bound tightly by some rope, which extended from his wrists to Dr. Manning’s carriage, which was hitched nearby. Mead, half-conscious, would have slipped down the hole to his death if not for this bondage. At the back of the parked carriage, Dan Teal, shiny in his military uniform, dipped his arms underneath another nude figure, lifted it, and started to walk over the treacherous ice. He carried the flaccid, white body of Augustus Manning, his beard hovering unnaturally over his sprout-thin chest, his legs and hips bound by rope, his body quivering as Teal crossed the slick pond.

Manning’s nose was a dark ruby; a thick layer of dried brown blood had gathered beneath it. Teal slipped Manning feet first into another aperture in the frozen lake, about a foot away from Mead’s. The shock of the freezing water pounded Manning to life; he splashed and groped madly. Teal now untied Pliny Mead’s arms, so the only force that could possibly prevent the two naked men from sliding into their respective holes was a furious attempt, instinctually comprehended and instantaneously begun by both, to grasp each other’s outstretched hands.

Teal stepped onto the embankment to watch them struggle, and then a gunshot rang out. It cracked the bark of a tree behind the murderer.

Lowell charged ahead, gripping his weapon and sliding wildly across the ice. “Teal!” he shouted. His rifle was poised for another shot. Longfellow, Holmes, and Fields all scrambled behind him.

Fields yelled, “Mr. Teal, you must stop this!”

Lowell could not believe what he saw over the barrel of his gun. Teal was remaining perfectly still.

“Shoot, Lowell, shoot!” Fields yelled.

Lowell always liked to take aim on hunting trips but never to fire. The sun now rose to a perfect height, unfurling over the vast crystalline surface.

For a moment the men were blinded by the reflection. By the time their eyes adjusted, Teal had vanished, the soft sounds of his running echoing in the woods. Lowell fired into the thicket.

Pliny Mead, shivering uncontrollably, went entirely limp, his head drooping against the ice and his body slowly sinking into the deadly water. Manning struggled to maintain a grip on the boy’s slick arms, then his wrists, then his fingers, but the weight was too much. Mead sank down into the water. Dr. Holmes dived, sliding across the ice. He plunged both arms into the hole, catching Mead by the hair and ears, and pulling, pulling until he grabbed hold of his chest, and then pulling some more until he lay on top of the ice. Fields and Longfellow heaved Manning by the arms, sliding him to the surface before he could fall under. They untied his legs and feet.

Holmes heard the crack of a whip and looked up to see Lowell on the driver’s box of the abandoned carriage. He urged the horses into the woods. Holmes jumped up and ran toward him. “Jamey, no!” Holmes cried. “We must get them into the warmth or they’ll die!”

“Teal will escape, Holmes!” Lowell stopped the horses and stared at the pathetic figure of Augustus Manning, clumsily thrashing on the frozen pond like a fish yanked from water. Here was Dr. Manning nearly undone and Lowell could make himself feel nothing but sympathy. The ice bent under the weight of the Dante Club members and the would-be murder victims, and water bubbled up through new holes as they walked. Lowell bounded down from the carriage just as one of Longfellow’s overshoes crashed through a weak strip of ice. Lowell was there to catch him.

Dr. Holmes stripped off his gloves and hat, then his overcoat and frock coat, and began piling them over Pliny Mead. “Wrap them up in everything you have! Cover their heads and necks!” He ripped off his cravat and tied it around the boy’s neck. Then he kicked off his boots and his socks, slipping them onto Mead’s feet. The others watched Holmes’s dancing hands carefully and imitated him.

Manning tried to speak, but what emerged was a slurred humming, a faint song. He tried to raise his head from the ice but was entirely confused as Lowell forced his hat onto him.

Dr. Holmes shouted, “Make sure to keep them awake! If they fall asleep, we’ll lose them!”

With difficulty, they carried the frigid bodies into the carriage. Lowell, stripped down to his shirtsleeves, returned to the driver’s box. As instructed by Holmes, Longfellow and Fields rubbed the victims’ necks and shoulders and raised their feet for circulation.

“Hurry, Lowell, hurry!” Holmes called out.

“We’re moving as fast as we can manage, Wendell!”

Holmes had known at once that Mead had the worst of it. A terrible gash at the back of his head, presumably left there by Teal, was an ill ingredient to mix with the deadly exposure. He frantically jolted the boy’s blood circulation on the short ride back to town. In spite of himself, Holmes heard echoing in his mind his poem he recited to his students to remind them how to treat their patients.

Mead’s body was so cold that it hurt him to touch it.

“The boy was lost before we arrived at Fresh Pond. There was no way to do more. You must believe that, my dear Holmes.”

Dr. Holmes was sliding Longfellow’s Tennyson inkwell back and forth between his fingers, ignoring Fields, his fingertips blackening with ink spots.

“And Augustus Manning owes you his life,” said Lowell. “And me my hat,” he added. “In all seriousness, Wendell, the man would be returned to the dust without you. Don’t you see? We’ve thwarted Lucifer. We’ve plucked a man from the jaws of the Devil. We’ve won this time because you gave yourself completely, my dear Wendell.”

The three Longfellow girls, dressed elaborately for outdoor play, knocked at the study door.

Alice was the first inside. “Papa, Trudy and all the other girls are sledding on the hill. Can’t we go?”

Longfellow looked to his friends, who were fixed in armchairs all around the room. Fields shrugged.

“Other children will be there?” Longfellow asked.

“All of Cambridge!” announced Edith.

“Very well,” said Longfellow, but then studied them as he was overcome with second thoughts. “Annie Allegra, perhaps you’ll stay here with Miss Davie.”

“Oh please, Papa! I have my new shoes to wear!” Annie kicked up her evidence.

“My dear Panzie,” he said, smiling. “I promise just this once.” The other two skipped out, and the little girl went into the hall to find her governess.

Nicholas Rey arrived in full-dress army uniform, with a blue coat and tunic. He reported that nothing had been found. But Sergeant Stoneweather had now raised several squads of men to search for Benjamin Galvin. “The board of health announced that the worst of the distemper has passed and is releasing several dozen horses from quarantine.”