nto his sinews
a measure of his mighty strength. Mostly he progressed by holding on to
the trees, pulling himself forward step by step.

Likely he would come too late to change the girl's fate. Yet even now he
knew he must not turn back. If the penalty were death, there must be no
hesitancy in him; he must not withhold one step.

But it was a losing fight. The hill itself seemed endless; a hundred
cruel yards of marsh must be traversed before ever he reached the
nearest point by the lake. The enemy camp from where Beatrice had called
to him lay on the far side of the lake, a distance of a full mile if he
followed around the curving shore. And black and bitter self-hatred
swept like fire through him when he realized that he could not possibly
keep on his feet for so long a way.

Was this all he had fought for--surging upward through these long, weary
weeks out of the shadow of death--only to fall dead on the trail in the
moment of Beatrice's need? Instantly he knew that nothing in his life,
no other desire or dream, had ever meant as much to him as this: that he
might reach her side in time. Even his desire for vengeance, in that
twilight madness, like Roland's, that had shaped his destiny, had been
wavering and feeble compared to this. And no moment of his existence had
ever been so dark, so bereft of the last, dim star of hope that lights
men's way in the deep night of despair.

He gave no thought to the fact of his own helplessness against three
armed men in case he did succeed in reaching their camp. The point could
not possibly be considered. The imperious instincts that forced him on
simply could not take it into reckoning. He knew only he must reach her
side and put in her service all that he had.

He fell again and again as he tried to make headway in the marsh. But
always he forced himself up and on. Only too plain he saw that the time
was even now upon him when he could no longer keep his feet at all. But
still he plunged on, and with tragically slow encroachments the shore
line drew up to him.

But he could not go on. The fire itself was hardly a quarter of a mile
distant, directly across the lake, but to follow the long shore was an
insuperable mile. Already his leg muscles were failing him, refusing to
the respond to the impulse of his nerves. Yet it might be that if he
could make himself heard his enemies would leave the girl for a moment,
at least--give her an instant's respite--while they came and d