was no bloodhound's
coat, he thought; too long and wiry and dense for that. But yet the
head--And, anyway, thought Willis, how came the poor beast to have died
just there, in his tent?

And in that moment the heavy lids of Jan's eyes twitched and lifted a
little. It was rather ghastly. They showed no eyes, properly speaking.
The eyes seemed to have receded, turned over, disappeared in some way.
All that the lifted lids showed Willis was two deep, triangular patches
of blood-red membrane. And above the prominent, thatched brows rose the
noble bloodhound forehead, serried wrinkle over wrinkle to the lofty
peak of the skull.

"My God!" muttered Willis, with no irreverent intent.

Always rich in the bloodhound characteristic of abundant folds of loose,
rolling skin about the head, neck, and shoulders, the wreck of Jan, from
which so very many pounds of solid flesh had been lost during the past
month, seemed to carry the skin of two hounds. And set deep in these
pouched and pendent folds of skin--tattered, blood-stained banners of
the hound's past glories--the face of Jan was as a wedge, incredibly
long and narrow.

His eyes had been torn out, it seemed. That was what forced the
exclamation from Willis. But it was only an abnormal extension of the
blood-red haws that Willis saw. The eyeballs had rolled up and back
somewhat, as they mostly do when a hound is _in extremis_; but they
would have shown if Jan had had the strength properly to lift his lids.
Yet he had seen Willis. It was his utter weakness, combined with the
hanging weight of his wrinkled face and flew-skin, that caused the
ghastly show of blood-red membrane only where eyeballs should have been.

But Jan did see Willis, and the loose skin of his battered shoulders
even shrank a little, in anticipation of a blow. Jan thought himself
still in the traces. (As a fact he was; and breast-band, too.)

The moment Willis spoke--his low "My God!"--Jan fancied he had heard the
old order to "Mush on!" and doubtless that another blow from the haft of
Beeching's whip was due. In view of his then desperate state, the effort
with which Jan answered the command he fancied he heard was a positive
miracle. He actually staggered to his feet, though too weak to lift his
eyelids, and plunged forward, with weakly scrabbling paws, to throw his
weight upon the traces. And plunging against nothing but space, he had
surely crashed to earth again, and in that moment crossed the Divide,