"My undissuaded heart I hear
Whisper courage in my ear."
—R.L.S.

Down,—steadily, interminably down the face of that formidable ravine, Theo Desmond slid, and scrambled, and climbed; holding his mind rigidly on the practical necessities of the moment, which were many and disconcerting. His stockinged feet showed dull-red streaks and blotches, where sharp stones had cut them. His hands were grazed and torn by futile clutchings at the surface of broken rocks: and the protruding neck of the brandy bottle had a trick of digging him playfully in the ribs: which made him swear. Impertinent raindrops chased each other down his cheeks and forehead; trickling into his eyes, and blinding him at critical moments when he dared not release a hand to brush them away. The inch-by-inch progress to which he was condemned fretted the hasty spirit of the man; anxiety consumed him, and conspired with impatience to beget a nightmare illusion that he had been battling with naked rock and dripping vegetation since the beginning of Time.

Once,—for all the caution with which he crept backward and downward,—his foot slipped, on the wet surface of a boulder; and, in the hope of avoiding a fall, he clutched at a small shrub, with one hand, shielding the aggressive brandy bottle with the other. But the treacherous sapling yielded under his weight; and wrenching its roots from the moist earth, he rolled over and over, knocking his head and chest violently against outlying peninsulars of rock.

Both hands were requisitioned now, in a vain effort to check a descent that had become too rapid for comfort or dignity: and before long, a musical clink, followed by a strong whiff of spirit, announced the fate of the brandy bottle.

"Damn the thing!" he exclaimed in an access of helpless fury. Then a fresh blow on his head whelmed anger and anxiety in sheer pain, and sent him rolling like a log into a kindly patch of undergrowth, which had, so far, blocked his downward view.

Here he lay awhile, half stunned, small runnels of water trickling from his clothing. But his vitality—never long in abeyance—soon reasserted itself. He sat up, and his hand went instinctively to his pocket. Drawing out the beheaded bottle, he was relieved to find that it still held a tablespoonful or more; and that his handkerchief was saturated with the precious fluid. He sucked a mouthful from it with keen satisfaction: then, using it for a wad, plugged up the bottle; and undaunted by bruises, dizziness, torn hands, and smarting feet, lost no time in starting afresh.

For the time being, progress was simpler, and less hazardous: and, once through the undergrowth, he came with disconcerting abruptness upon that which he sought.

Eight feet below him, on a merciful ledge of earth wide enough to check the fatal rebound into space, Eldred Lenox lay face downward, his left arm crumpled under him; the other flung outward as if in a last desperate effort to ward off the inevitable. Shaitan was nowhere to be seen. The sheer drop beyond told his fate.

Soldier as he was, and inured to the sight of death in its most barbarous aspect, Desmond's heart stood still as he looked down upon that powerful figure of manhood lying helpless and alone, pattered upon indifferently by the dripping heavens.

Choosing a spot that promised a soft landing-place, Desmond dropped on to the ledge; knelt beside the injured man; and speedily assured himself that life was not extinct. Unconsciousness was due to a wound on the back of his head, from which blood still trickled sluggishly through the thick black hair. The arm crumpled under him was broken below the elbow. Very gently, as though he were a child asleep, Desmond turned him on to his back. His eyes showed fixed and glazed between half-open lids, and a deep scratch disfigured his cheek. Pillowing the inert head on one arm, Desmond applied the spirit to his lips again and again, a few drops at a time: till the lids lifted heavily, and life returned with a slow shuddering breath.

Desmond bent down to him eagerly.

"Not going out this journey, Lenox, old chap."

But no answering gleam rewarded him; no movement of limb or feature. Only the lids fell again; and Desmond knew that this was no fainting fit, but collapse from probable damage to the brain.

After applying more brandy to the lips and temples without result, he removed his Norfolk coat—still warm and dry within—and with the help of two fir boughs contrived to shelter Lenox's head and chest from the chilling downpour. Then he set to work on the broken arm. The same fir,—springing sturdily from a cleft in the rock below,—provided a splint; and with two handkerchiefs (he had wrung the last drop of rain-diluted brandy from his own) he tied the injured limb skilfully and securely into place. That done, there remained nothing but to wait:—the hardest task that can be assigned to a man of action.

And to wait sitting was beyond him. Steady pacing in the cramped space available helped to deaden thought and promote warmth,—for by now his soaked shirt-sleeves clung to his arms.

He kept it up doggedly till approaching footsteps brought his damp vigil to an end; and Colonel Mayhew stepped on to the ledge.

"Alive?" he asked, glancing at the prostrate figure, and Desmond nodded.

"Can't get him round, though. Concussion, I'm afraid. A nasty wound on his head, and one arm fractured. But for that strip of undergrowth, he would have been done for. Hope to God that lazy beggar Garth hurried up after O'Malley. We won't wait here, though.—Come on, coolie-log." [Transcriber's note: The "o" in "log" is the Unicode "o-macron", U+014D.]

Colonel Mayhew going forward to lend a hand, glanced over the precipitous drop on his right, and turned hastily away again. That which had been Shaitan was visible below; and it was not pleasant to look at.

"Lenox'll be cut up about that," he muttered as they lifted him cautiously on to the reeking strip of blanket.

It was a dreary journey up that corkscrew footpath, inch-deep in running water, that led to the ordinary levels of life. Desmond kept his post by Lenox's head and shoulders, sheltering him still with the discarded coat, and clinging to the track's edge with supple, stockinged feet. But there was no preventing jars and jolts arising from broken ground, and the difficulty of carrying a litter at an almost impossible angle. Half-way up they caught sight of Dr O'Malley,—a Pickwickian figure of a man, booted and spurred,—skipping, stumbling, and slithering towards them in a fashion ludicrous enough to bring a flicker of mirth into Desmond's eyes.

They drew up when, at length, he bore down upon them with a rush of expletives by way of sympathy: for he was good-hearted and a ready man of his tongue, if not a brilliant unit of his profession. His rapid examination of Lenox ended in praise of Desmond's amateur bit of surgery, and a confirmation of his verdict—concussion of the brain.

"An' there's no telling yet, of course, if it's slight or serious. But begad be must have had a nasty tumble. Devilish lucky to get off with his life,—that's a fact. What's the nearest bungalow we can get him into? 'Tis a good eight miles to the hospital; and the sooner he's out of this d—d watering-can business the better chance for him."

Desmond turned to Colonel Mayhew.

"How about the Forest bungalow, sir? Only a couple of miles on, isn't it? Brodie must be there now; and he's the right sort, if he is a bit of an anchorite."

"Why, of course. The very thing. He's something of an experimentalist too. Keeps up a small pharmacy in one of his outhouses. He'll make room for Lenox like a shot."

"And for me too, I hope. I'm game to sleep anywhere. But I won't leave
Lenox till he's fit to go into Dalhousie."

Colonel Mayhew nodded approval; and the dismal procession set out again; O'Malley enlivening its progress with highly-coloured reminiscences of khud accidents he had known, and with incidental attempts at jocularity that fizzled out like damp fireworks. It was all meant kindly enough. But Desmond was thinking of both man and wife as he had seen them greet one another that morning; and an atmosphere of pseudo-hilarity jarred his nerves like a discord in music. For the man possessed that mingling of fortitude and delicacy of feeling, which stands revealed in the lives of so many famous fighters, and may well be termed the hall-mark of heroism.

In due time they came upon the two women, still sitting—drenched and patient—on their bank of soaked fir-needles; and Desmond hurried forward to get in a word or two with Quita unobserved. At sight of him—coatless, mud-bespattered, with torn clothes, and blood-stained face and hands—Honor could not repress a small sound of dismay. But Quita saw in his eyes the one thing she wanted; and may surely be forgiven if she paid small heed to his plight. Her face fell at the details of the damage done.

"Mayn't I just have a sight of him as he passes us?" she pleaded.

"Better not," he answered kindly, "You have an artist's brain, remember; and I want you to sleep a little to-night. Trust me to do every mortal thing I can for him. Honor will see you home, and I'll send a runner in with news this evening. We'll pull him through between us,—never fear."

She tried to speak her thanks; but failing, put out a hand impulsively to speak for her; and his enfolding grasp made her feel less lonely, less desperate than she had felt since the awful moment when her husband vanished into space. The fact that he was in Desmond's hands seemed a guarantee that all would go well with him. There was no logic in the conclusion; and she knew it. But logic has little to do with conviction: and many who came to know Desmond fell into this same trick of depending on him to win through the thing to which he set his band. Yet his optimism had no affinity with the cheap school of philosophy, that nurses a pleasant mind without reference to disconcerting facts. It was the outcome of that supreme faith in an Ultimate Best, working undismayed through failure and pain, which lies at the root of all human achievement: and it was, in consequence, singularly infectious and convincing.

Quita's impressionable spirit readily caught a reflection from its rays: and hope revived sent a glow through all her chilled body.

"Take a stiff whisky toddy the minute you get in," he commanded, while lifting her into the saddle. "And try to remember that over-anxiety won't mend matters. It will only exhaust your strength. I'll come in and see you whenever I can. Ride on at once," he added hastily, for the stretcher, with its pitiful burden, was close upon them. "We'll catch you up."

She obeyed with a childlike docility that touched him to the heart, and he turned quickly to his wife.

"Come on, you dear, drenched woman. You've no business to be here at all; and we mustn't keep 'em waiting."

"But Theo, . . . your feet!" she murmured distressfully. "Are they quite cut to bits?"

"No—not quite." He glanced whimsically down at his dishevelled figure.
"Lord, what a scarecrow I must be! Aren't you half-ashamed of owning me?"

"Well—naturally!" she answered, beaming upon him as she set her foot in the hollow of his hand. "I shall see something of you,—shan't I?"

"Trust me for that. See all you can of her too. She's as plucky as they make 'em: but she may need it all and more, before we're through with this, poor little soul."

He mounted, and rode with them as far as the woodsheds, where the men branched off to the Forest bungalow, leaving the two women to ride on alone: and, in obedience to Desmond's parting injunction, they kept up a steady canter most of the way.