red the
sullen blue of the passing night flecked with scudding clouds, and there
in front of them, to the east and between the mountains, flared the
splendours of the dawn.

Something had struck Leonard heavily, so heavily that the blood ran down
his face; he did not heed it, he scarcely felt it; he only clasped his
brother in his arms and, for the first time for many years, he kissed
him on the brow, staining it with the blood from his wound.

The dying man looked up. He saw the glory in the East. Now it ran along
the mountain sides, now it burned upon their summits, to each summit a
pillar of flame, a peculiar splendour of its own diversely shaped; and
now the shapes of fire leaped from earth to heaven, peopling the sky
with light. The dull clouds caught the light, but they could not hold it
all: back it fell to earth again, and the forests lifted up their arms
to greet it, and it shone upon the face of the waters.

Thomas Outram saw--and staggering to his knees he stretched out his arms
towards the rising sun, muttering with his lips.

Then he sank upon Leonard's breast, and presently all his story was
told.

CHAPTER IV

THE LAST VIGIL

For a while Leonard sat by the body of his brother. The daylight grew
and gathered about him, the round ball of the sun appeared above the
mountains.

The storm was gone. Were it not for some broken fragments of the
vanished hut, it would have been difficult to know even that it had
been. Insects began to chirrup, lizards ran from the crevices of the
rocks, yonder the rain-washed bud of a mountain lily opened before his
eyes. Still Leonard sat on, his face stony with grief, till at length
a shadow fell upon him from above. He looked up--it was cast by a
vulture's wings, as they hurried to the place of death.

Grasping his loaded rifle Leonard sprang to his feet. Nearer and nearer
came the bird, wheeling above him in lessening circles: it forgot the
presence of the living in its desire for the dead. Leonard lifted the
rifle, aimed and fired. The report rang out clearly on the silent air,
and was echoed from krantz and kloof and mountain side, and from above
answered the thud of the bullet. For a moment the smitten bird swayed
upon its wide pinions, then they seemed to crumple beneath its weight,
and it fell heavily and lay flapping and striking at the stones with its
strong beak.

"I also can kill," said Leonard to himself as he watched it die. "Kill
till you are kill