and the three, eyeing each other suspiciously,
resume their march. The third day--the sixteenth of their awful
journey--such portions of the carcase as they have with them prove unfit
to eat. They look into each other's famine-sharpened faces, and wonder
"who's next?"

"We must all die together," said Sanders quickly, "before anything else
must happen."

Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when the dreaded
giant is out of earshot, says, "For God's sake, let's go on alone,
Alick. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is--he'd kill his father
before he'd fast one day."

They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode towards them.
Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett struck the Moocher on the
forehead with the axe. "Help! Jem, help!" cried the victim, cut, but not
fatally, and in the strength of his desperation tore the axe from the
monster who bore it, and flung it to Vetch. "Keep it, Jemmy," he cried;
"let's have no more murder done!"

They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall, when Vetch,
in a strange voice, called the giant to him.

"He must die."

"Either you or he," laughs Gabbett. "Give me the axe."

"No, no," said the Crow, his thin, malignant face distorted by a
horrible resolution. "I'll keep the axe. Stand back! You shall hold him,
and I'll do the job."

Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end was come, and submitted,
crying, "Give me half an hour to pray for myself." They consent, and the
bewildered wretch knelt down and folded his hands like a child. His
big, stupid face worked with emotion. His great cracked lips moved
in desperate agony. He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful
confusion of his brutalized senses. "I can't think o' the words, Jem!"

"Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, "we can't starve here all
night."

Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful journey sat
watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes gleaming with hate
and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf. The dwarf, chuckling at his
superior sagacity, clutched the fatal axe. For two days they had not
spoken to each other. For two days each had promised himself that on the
next his companion must sleep--and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish
scheme of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow-beings to aid
him by their deaths to his own safety, and held aloof. Gabbett watched
to snatch the weapon from his companion, and make th