more than human, made answer. "Just a little longer, dear old man! Only a
little longer! See! I'm holding you up. Turn up the lamp, doctor. Take
off the shade. He can't see me. There, old chap! Look at me now. Grip
hold of me. You can't go yet. I'm with you. I'm holding you back."

Capper trickled something out of a spoon between the pale lips, and for a
little there was silence.

But the blue eyes remained wide, fixed upon those other fiery eyes that
held them by some mysterious magic from falling into sightlessness.

Three figures had come in through the open door, moving wraith-like,
silently. The room seemed full of shadows.

After a while Lucas spoke again, and this time his lips moved
perceptibly. "It's such a long way back, Boney,--no end of a trail--and
all up hill."

The flare of the lamp was full upon Nap's face; it threw the harsh lines
into strong relief, and it seemed to Anne, watching, that she looked upon
the face of a man in extremity. His voice too--was that Nap's voice
pleading so desperately?

"Don't be faint-hearted, old chap! I'll haul you up. It won't be so tough
presently. You're through the worst already. Hold on, Luke, hold on!"

Again Capper poured something between the parted lips, and a quiver ran
through the powerless body.

"Hold on!" Nap repeated. "You promised you would. You mustn't go yet, old
boy. You can't be spared. I shall go to the devil without you."

"Not you, Boney!" Lucas's lips quivered into a smile. "That's all over,"
he said. "You're playing--the straight game--now."

"You must stay and see it through," said Nap. "I can't win out
without you."

"Ah!" A long sigh came pantingly with the word. "That so, Boney? Guess
I'm--a selfish brute--always was--always was."

A choked sob came through the stillness. Bertie suddenly covered his
face. Mrs. Errol put her arm round him as one who comforted a child.

"Is that--someone--crying?" gasped Lucas.

"It's that ass Bertie," answered Nap, without stirring so much as
an eyelid.

"Bertie? Poor old chap! Tell him he mustn't. Tell him--I'll hang on--a
little longer--God willing; but only a little longer, Boney, only--a
little--longer."

There was pleading in the voice, the pleading of a man unutterably tired
and longing to be at rest.

Anne, standing apart, was cut to the heart with the pathos of it. But Nap
did not seem to feel it. He knelt on, inflexible, determined, all his
iron will, all his fiery vitality, concentr