signed, already of the grave. The window was wide open,
covered by mosquito-netting, and a tiny line of sunlight, slanting
through across the foot of the cot, crept slowly backwards over the
sheets and the boy's body, shortening as it crept. In the grey whiteness
of the walls; the bed, the boy's face, just that pale yellow bar of
sunlight, and one splash of red and blue from a little flag on the wall
glowed out. At this cooler hour, the ward behind the screens was almost
empty, and few sounds broke the stillness; but from without came that
intermittent rustle of dry palm-leaves. Pierson waited in silence,
watching the sun sink. If the boy might pass like this, it would be
God's mercy. Then he saw the boy's eyes open, wonderfully clear eyes of
the lighted grey which has dark rims; his lips moved, and Pierson bent
down to hear.

"I'm goin' West, zurr." The whisper had a little soft burr; the lips
quivered; a pucker as of a child formed on his face, and passed.

Through Pierson's mind there flashed the thought: 'O God! Let me be some
help to him!'

"To God, my dear son!" he said.

A flicker of humour, of ironic question, passed over the boy's lips.

Terribly moved, Pierson knelt down, and began softly, fervently praying.
His whispering mingled with the rustle of the palm-leaves, while the bar
of sunlight crept up the body. In the boy's smile had been the whole of
stoic doubt, of stoic acquiescence. It had met him with an unconscious
challenge; had seemed to know so much. Pierson took his hand, which lay
outside the sheet. The boy's lips moved, as though in thanks; he drew
a long feeble breath, as if to suck in the thread of sunlight; and his
eyes closed. Pierson bent over the hand. When he looked up the boy was
dead. He kissed his forehead and went quietly out.

The sun had set, and he walked away from the hospital to a hillock
beyond the track on the desert's edge, and stood looking at the
afterglow. The sun and the boy--together they had gone West, into that
wide glowing nothingness.

The muezzin call to sunset prayer in the Arab village came to him clear
and sharp, while he sat there, unutterably lonely. Why had that smile
so moved him? Other death smiles had been like this evening smile on the
desert hills--a glowing peace, a promise of heaven. But the boy's smile
had said: 'Waste no breath on me--you cannot help. Who knows--who knows?
I have no hope, no faith; but I am adventuring. Good-bye!' Poor boy! He
had