oice, "you will
address no man but me."

"If your prophecy is to be fulfilled," laughed Zuleika, rising from her
chair, "your last moment is at hand."

"It is," he answered, rising too.

"What do you mean?" she asked, awed by something in his tone.

"I mean what I say: that my last moment is at hand." He withdrew
his eyes from hers, and, leaning his elbows on the balustrade, gazed
thoughtfully at the river. "When I am dead," he added, over his
shoulder, "you will find these fellows rather coy of your advances."

For the first time since his avowal of his love for her, Zuleika found
herself genuinely interested in him. A suspicion of his meaning had
flashed through her soul.--But no! surely he could not mean THAT! It
must have been a metaphor merely. And yet, something in his eyes... She
leaned beside him. Her shoulder touched his. She gazed questioningly at
him. He did not turn his face to her. He gazed at the sunlit river.

The Judas Eight had just embarked for their voyage to the
starting-point. Standing on the edge of the raft that makes a floating
platform for the barge, William, the hoary bargee, was pushing them off
with his boat-hook, wishing them luck with deferential familiarity.
The raft was thronged with Old Judasians--mostly clergymen--who were
shouting hearty hortations, and evidently trying not to appear so old
as they felt--or rather, not to appear so startlingly old as their
contemporaries looked to them. It occurred to the Duke as a strange
thing, and a thing to be glad of, that he, in this world, would never be
an Old Judasian. Zuleika's shoulder pressed his. He thrilled not at all.
To all intents, he was dead already.

The enormous eight young men in the thread-like skiff--the skiff that
would scarce have seemed an adequate vehicle for the tiny "cox" who sat
facing them--were staring up at Zuleika with that uniformity of impulse
which, in another direction, had enabled them to bump a boat on two of
the previous "nights." If to-night they bumped the next boat, Univ.,
then would Judas be three places "up" on the river; and to-morrow Judas
would have a Bump Supper. Furthermore, if Univ. were bumped to-night,
Magdalen might be bumped to-morrow. Then would Judas, for the first
time in history, be head of the river. Oh tremulous hope! Yet, for
the moment, these eight young men seemed to have forgotten the awful
responsibility that rested on their over-developed shoulders. Their
hearts, already strai