t a complete circle
the vultures made on the rocks and stunted trees of the sloping
hill-side. Oh, for a revolver! A man ought to carry one on shikar
expeditions. One would give him a chance of life when under a tiger or
panther--and a chance of decent death in a position such as this.
Where had he read that vultures begin on the eyes of their prey?
Without awaiting its death either, so long as it could not defend
itself. There were other depraved gustatory preferences, too, if he
remembered rightly-He would have an opportunity of testing the
accuracy of the statement--though not of assuring its author as to its
correctness.

Water ... Water ... Water ...

Had he fainted again, that the vultures were so much nearer?... Why
should he be a second Prometheus? Had he not had suffering enough in
his life, without having more in his death?... If the sending of a
little water were too obvious a miracle, was it too much to ask that
his next fainting and collapse might last long enough for the vultures
to get to work, make a beginning, and an end?

Surely that would not be too great a miracle, since he had lain for
years on a red-hot rock with blood in his mouth and his body wrecked
like a smashed egg. He must be practically dead. Perhaps if he held
his laboured breath and closed his eyes they _would_ begin, and he
would have the strength to keep still when they did so. That would be
the quickest way. Once they started, it would not be long before his
bones were cleaned. No possible ghost of a chance of being saved.
Probably no human foot had been on these particular rocks since human
feet existed. Nor would he ever again have the strength to drag his
shattered body to where the rifle lay. Only a few yards away lay
speedy happy release.

"No such thing as luck, Damocles."

Perhaps the vultures thought otherwise.

Colonel John Decies, still of Bimariabad, but long retired on pension
from the Indian Medical Service, was showing his mental and physical
unfitness for the service of the Government that had ordered his
retirement, by devoting himself at the age of fifty-nine to
aviation--aviation in the interests of the wounded on the battlefield.
What he wanted to live to see was a flying stretcher-service of the
Royal Army Medical Corps that should flash to and fro at the rate of a
hundred miles an hour between the rear of the firing-line and the
field hospital and base hospital in aeroplanes built especially for
the accomm