liness; and in its misery Cecil, flung down upon
the sands beside him, could do nothing except--helpless to aid, and
powerless to save--watch the last breath grow feebler and feebler, until
it faded out from the only life that had been faithful to him.

By the fitful gleams of day he could see the blood slowly ebbing out
from the great gap where the lance-head was still bedded with its wooden
shaft snapped in two; he could see the drooped head that he had raised
upon his knee, with the yellow, northern curls that no desert suns had
darkened; and Rake's eyes, smiling so brightly and so bravely still,
looked up from under their weary lids to his.

"I'd never let you take my hand before, sir; just take it once now--will
you?--while I can see you still."

Their hands met as he asked it, and held each other close and long; all
the loyal service of the one life, and all the speechless gratitude of
the other, told better than by all words in that one farewell.

A light that was not from the stormy dusky morning shone over the
soldier's face.

"Time was, sir," he said, with a smile, "when I need to think as how,
some day or another, when I should have done something great and grand,
and you was back among your own again, and they here had given me the
Cross, I'd have asked you to have done that before all the Army, and
just to have said to 'em, if so you liked, 'He was a scamp, and he
wasn't thought good for naught; but he kept true to me, and you see it
made him go straight, and I aren't ashamed to call him my friend.' I
used to think that, sir, though 'twas silly, perhaps. But it's best as
it is--a deal best, no doubt. If you was only back safe in camp---"

"O God! cease! I am not worthy one thought of love like yours."

"Yes, you are, sir--leastways, you was to me. When you took pity on me,
it was just a toss-up if I didn't go right to the gallows. Don't grieve
that way, Mr. Cecil. If I could just have seen you home again in your
place, I should have been glad--that's all. You'll go back one day, sir;
when you do, tell the King I ain't never forgot him."

His voice grew faint as the last sentence stole from his lips; he lay
quite still, his head leaned back against his mater; and the day came,
with the north winds driving over the plains and the gray mists tossed
by them to and fro like smoke.

There was a long silence, a pause in which the windstorm ceased, and
the clouds of the loosed sands sunk. Alone, with the w