een and receded into, those thick grey mists that gather about the
dying, he has lost consciousness of present things. Fever is rising in
those wellnigh empty veins of his, his skin is drawing and creeping; it
seems as though innumerable ants were running over him. The hand that is
not powerless tries to brush them away. Sometimes he thinks he is in
Hospital, and that the man in the next bed is groaning, and then he is
aware that the groans are his own. He is conscious that a needle-prick in
the sound wrist has been followed by sensible relief. The unspeakable
grinding agonies subside; he is able to murmur, "Thanks, Nurse," as he
gulps some liquid from the glass a strange hand holds to his lips....

The groans are sighs now, and the clogged brain, spurred by morphia,
shakes off its lethargy. The fever goes on rising, and he begins,
silently, for his powers fail of speech, to wander over all the past.
Could Saxham, sitting motionless and vigilant on the folding-chair, his
keen eyes quick to note each change, his deft hand prompt to do all that
can be done--could Saxham hear, he would behold, anatomised before his
mental vision, the soul of this his fellow-man.

"Coming straight for me--five round black spots punched in the grey. If
they go by, luck's on my side, and I marry her. If not ... hit--and done
for!"

Exactly thus has Saxham made of the unconscious Father Noah, of the Boer
sharp shooters behind their breastwork, the arbiters of Fate.

"Send for Bingo!" flashes across the dying brain "Something to say to
Bingo. Don't bring _her_. Who'd want a woman who loved him to remember him
like this? What was it the Mahometan _syce_ the _musth_ elephant killed at
Bhurtpore said about his wife? '_Let her cool my grave with tears._' Until
she finds out ... until someone tells her. Ah--'h!" There is a groan, and
a convulsive shudder, and the beautiful dim eyes roll up in agony, and the
blue, swollen lips are wrung as the feeble voice whispers: "Nurse, this
hurts like--hell! Some more--that stuff!"

Saxham gives another subcutaneous injection of morphia. The curtains part,
and the Colonel, in waterproof and a dreadnought cap, comes noiselessly
in. "No change," Saxham answers to the mute inquiry. "I anticipate none
before midnight. Of course, the weakness is progressive."

"Of course." The Chief touches the cold, flaccid wrist. There are hollows
in his lean cheeks, and deep crow's-feet at the corners of the kindly
hazel eyes