fate and doom.

Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got
it home, he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into
the water with a groan.

Lygon, weapon in hand, and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and
make for the canoe again.

Ten, twenty, fifty seconds passed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went
by, and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again.
In his wild rage he had burst a blood vessel on the brain.

Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did--it calmly,
whispering to himself the while.

"I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die
then," he muttered to himself. Presently he grasped an oar and paddled
feebly.

A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks
again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place.

Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but
began this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently.
First, step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forwards,
a journey as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it
never end? It seemed a terrible climbing up the sides of a cliff, and,
as he struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but
he realised that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard
did not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the
murmur of waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells.
But the bells were only the beatings of his heart-so loud, so swift.

He was on his knees now crawling on-on-on. At last there came a light,
suddenly bursting on him from a tent, he was so near. Then he called,
and called again, and fell forwards on his face. But now he heard a
voice above him. It was her voice. He had blindly struggled on to die
near her, near where she was, she was so pitiful and good.

He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him.
There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard.

"God help him--oh, God help him!" she was saying. He drew a long quiet
breath. "I will sleep now," he said clearly.

He would hear the Whisperer no more.

AS DEEP AS THE SEA

"What can I do, Dan? I'm broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last
debt to-day. I've nothing but what I stand in. I've got prospects, but
I can't discount prospects at the banks." The speaker laughed bitterly.