feebly with an injured arm.

Then she sees for the first time he is the child with the European
features.

"Will it hurt you if I carry you back?" asks Eleanor.

"Best try," answers the boy abruptly.

He is heavy for his age, but she staggers forward manfully, while the
little aching head drops confidingly on her shoulder.

"You're awful pretty," he gasps at last, "and I am dropping no end of
blood off my arm on your bodice. Oh! how my leg hurts. Guess I have
broken it clean in two."

At every step Eleanor fears she must give in, the perspiration is
standing out on her forehead, while her own wounds smart and ache.

"I am afraid I shake you terribly up this hill; would you like me to
rest a moment?"

Eleanor hopes he will say yes, for her strength is giving out.

"Sit on that stone, I'm just dying," moans the little lad.

Eleanor eagerly assents, and moves him into a more comfortable position.

"My mother is white like you," he says at last, raising his head.

"Is she, dear? Are you better? Shall we go on?"

"Yes, please. We may meet father, he is ever so big and dark. I shall
be big and dark too, all the good men are black."

"And the good women?" asks Eleanor, smiling in spite of her load.

"Oh! white of course, white all over like you and mother, hands, feet,
everything."

Eleanor staggers on breathlessly up the hill, the boy seems to grow
heavier at every step. She is nearly exhausted. He is like the weight
of her sin, which increases with time.

[Illustration: Eleanor staggers on breathlessly up the hill.]

One or twice she stumbles, the boy clutches her round the neck, fearing
she will fall upon him, and his hands half choke her. She gasps for
breath.

"Is it much farther?" she pants, turning sick and dizzy with the climb.

"No, there is my house, that hut ahead, see."

It has come in sight not a moment too soon, for Eleanor's arms are
cramped and paralysed by supporting his body, her cheek pale with the
heat, her heart fluttering spasmodically.

Only a few steps more, and she will have reached the haven of refuge.
How foolish it would be to fail now.

Through sheer force of will she reaches the hut, and as the boy cries
"Mother! mother!" she sinks exhausted in the entrance, still holding
her suffering burden in her arms.

A woman rushes out, and takes her bleeding son from the stranger's
embrace.

"He has been hurt," explains Eleanor faintly. "I carried him up the
hill."