ater intrigued, puzzled, dazzled, enchanted and
revolted him; alive, he seemed but a doubtful good; and the thought of
him lying dead was so unwelcome that it pursued him, like a vision, with
every circumstance of colour and sound. Incessantly, he had before him
the image of that great mass of man stricken down in varying attitudes
and with varying wounds; fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his
side; or clinging to a doorpost with the changing face and the relaxing
fingers of the death-agony. He heard the click of the trigger, the thud
of the ball, the cry of the victim; he saw the blood flow. And this
building up of circumstance was like a consecration of the man, till he
seemed to walk in sacrificial fillets. Next he considered Davis, with
his thick-fingered, coarse-grained, oat-bread commonness of nature, his
indomitable valour and mirth in the old days of their starvation, the
endearing blend of his faults and virtues, the sudden shining forth of a
tenderness that lay too deep for tears; his children, Adar and her bowel
complaint, and Adar's doll. No, death could not be suffered to approach
that head even in fancy; with a general heat and a bracing of his
muscles, it was borne in on Herrick that Adar's father would find in him
a son to the death. And even Huish showed a little in that sacredness;
by the tacit adoption of daily life they were become brothers; there was
an implied bond of loyalty in their cohabitation of the ship and their
passed miseries, to which Herrick must be a little true or wholly
dishonoured. Horror of sudden death for horror of sudden death, there
was here no hesitation possible: it must be Attwater. And no sooner was
the thought formed (which was a sentence) than his whole mind of man ran
in a panic to the other side: and when he looked within himself, he was
aware only of turbulence and inarticulate outcry.

In all this there was no thought of Robert Herrick. He had complied with
the ebb-tide in man's affairs, and the tide had carried him away; he
heard already the roaring of the maelstrom that must hurry him under.
And in his bedevilled and dishonoured soul there was no thought of self.

For how long he walked silent by his companion Herrick had no guess.
The clouds rolled suddenly away; the orgasm was over; he found himself
placid with the placidity of despair; there returned to him the power of
commonplace speech; and he heard with surprise his own voice say: 'What
a lovely evening!'