ning on the side,
near the floor."

Pasquale uttered several maledictions.

"How should I know?" he asked when he had found the right place. "Am I a
night boy? Have I ever tended fires for two pence a night and my supper?
There! I go!"

Zorzi could hear his voice still, as he went out.

"A surgeon!" he grumbled. "I should like to see the nose of that surgeon
at the door!"

Zorzi cared little who came, so that he got some relief. His head was
hot now, and the blood beat in his temples like little fiery hammers,
that made a sort of screaming noise in his brain. He saw queer lights in
circles, and the beams of the ceiling came down very near, and then
suddenly went very far away, so that the room seemed a hundred feet
high. The pain filled all his right side, and he even thought he could
feel it in his arm.

All at once he started, and as he lay on his back his hands tried to
grip the flat wood of the bench, and his eyes were wide open and fixed
in a sort of frightened stare.

What if he should go mad with pain? Who would remember the fire in the
master's furnace? Worse than that, what safety was there that in his
delirium he should not speak of the book that was hidden under the
stone, the third from the oven and the fourth from the corner?

His brain whirled but he would not go mad, nor lose consciousness, so
long as he had the shadow of free will left. Rather than lie there on
his back, he would get off his bench, cost what it might, and drag
himself to the mouth of the furnace. There was a supply of wood there,
piled up by the night boys for use during the day. He could get to it,
even if he had to roll himself over and over on the floor. If he could
do that, he could keep his hold upon his consciousness, the touch of the
billets would remind him, the heat and the roar of the fire would keep
him awake and in his right mind.

He raised himself slowly and put his uninjured foot to the floor. Then,
with both hands he lifted the other leg off the bench. He was conscious
of an increase of pain, which had seemed impossible. It shot through and
through his whole body; and he saw flames. There was only one way to do
it, he must get down upon his hands and his left knee and drag himself
to the furnace in that way. It was a thing of infinite difficulty and
suffering, but he did it. Inch by inch, he got nearer.

As his right hand grasped a billet of wood from the little pile,
something seemed to break in his head. Hi