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Kneeling a brief moment at the bedside of the unconscious and fast-failing sufferer, he bade his fellows hurried adieu and drove with speed to town, a long eight miles. It was then broad daylight, but he stirred up the sleepy telegraph operator and asked about wiring after the train. "Grand Island's the place to catch 'em," said the operator. "They breakfast there at seven."
It was village property by this time, and all tongues were exercised over it. "Why ain't Lot Gordon goin' to marry her?" they asked each other, and exchanged answering looks of dark suspicion. The reason for not marrying which Lot used every means in his power to promulgate his fast-failing health gained little credence.
The consultation of the lost travelers, with death by thirst staring them in the face; the resolution to press on while their strength lasted; the fall of a heavy shower, the vain efforts made to catch the rainwater, the transient relief experienced by sucking their wet clothes; the sufferings renewed a few hours after; the night advance of the strongest of the party, leaving the weakest behind; the following a flight of birds when morning dawned; the discovery by the lost men of the broad pool of water that saved their lives all this Midwinter's fast-failing attention mastered painfully, Allan's voice growing fainter and fainter on his ear with every sentence that was read.
To all the poor German's despairing entreaties Pons only replied by a shake of the head and occasional impatient movements; till, after awhile, he summoned up all his fast-failing strength to say, with a heartrending look: "Do let me die in peace!"
"I suppose I should not require that stimulant so often to keep up my dying frame, if I had not been so hard a drinker in late years. However, it is absolutely necessary to me now, if I am to go on. Come close; I cannot raise my voice any longer," whispered the fast-failing man.
Tossed hither and thither, to and fro, Roger strove to get his breath; but he could not, for he seemed buried in salt water; and he was suffering all the agonies of suffocation when his head emerged for a moment from the water and he drew a hasty breath that seemed to put fresh strength into his fast-failing limbs.
The very terror of the thought nerved him once more revived his fast-failing strength. Drawing forth another of his bone daggers, he plunged it, too, deep into the body of the beast. For a moment the sinewy, struggling tentacles relaxed, and just that moment the man was able to seize, or he had been lost.
The sound of a voice had encouraged Miss Letitia to pursue her own confused train of thought, and had stimulated the fast-failing capacity of speech to exert itself once more. "No! no! He's too cunning for you, and too cunning for me. He doesn't leave letters about; he destroys them all. Did I say he was too cunning for us? It's false. We are too cunning for him.
Then she sank, and the bottom blew out of her as she plunged beneath the surface. At this precise moment, to Jim's fast-failing senses there came the roar of a terrific explosion, followed almost instantly by a second, and he knew that, though his own ship was lost, he had done his duty and succeeded in destroying three of the enemy.
Mauer's gaze wandered uncertainly towards the speaker; a shudder passed over his dying form, and his brain made a powerful effort to penetrate the mists gathering over it. "I did not kill Julie, and you knew it and never told me?" he stammered, with fast-failing voice. "Certainly I knew it; but did you ever ask me about it?
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