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Zalia heard his breath come short and fast; she looked at him and asked what was the matter. His arms dropped feebly to his sides; and the hook and sickle fell from his hands. "Zalia, I don't know ... but something's catching my breath like; and my eyes are dim...." "It's the heat, Zeen, it'll wear off. Take a pull."
She fetched the bottle of gin from the grass edge of the field, poured a sip down his throat and stood looking to see how it worked: "Well?" Zeen did not answer, but stood there shivering and staring, with his eyes fixed on a bluebonnet in the cut corn. "Come, come, Zeen, get it done! Have just another try: it'll get cooler directly and we'll be finished before dark."
Zalia was startled by it, but, to comfort him: "It'll be nothing, Zeen," she said. "I'll give you a little Haarlem oil." She pulled him on to a chair, fetched the little bottle, put a few drops into a bowl of milk and poured it down his throat. "Is it doing you good?"
The door opened and from behind the screen came a great big fellow with a black beard: "What's up here? A whole gathering of people: is it harvest-treat to-day, Zalia? Why, here's Barbara and Mite and...." "Warten, Zeen is ill." "Zeen?... Ill?" "Yes, ill, man, and we're sitting up."
"Sleep well." "Sleep well too and say another Our Father for Zeen." "Certainly." She went in and bolted the door. Inside it all smelt of candle and the musty odour of the corpse. She put out the fire in the hearth, dipped her fingers once more in the holy water and made a cross over Zeen.
The flame of the candle flickered and everything flickered with it the loom, the black rafters and the crucifix in dark shadow-stripes upon the wall. 'Twas that kept her awake. She sat up and blew from where she was, but the flame danced more than ever and kept on burning. Then she carefully stepped across Zeen and nipped out the candle with her fingers.
But still I could see the jog of his hat a Sunday hat with a top to it and some of his shoulder bowed out in the mist, so that one could say 'Hold up, John, when Smiler put his foot in. 'Mercy of God! where be us now? said John Fry, waking suddenly; 'us ought to have passed hold hash, Jan. Zeen it on the road, have 'ee? 'No indeed, John; no old ash.
Zeen groaned; he opened his eyes wide and looked round wildly at all those people. He hung there for a very long time, with his lean black legs out of the bed and the bony knees and shrunk thighs in the insipid, sickly-smelling steam of the bran-water. Then they lifted him out and stuck his wet feet under the bedclothes again. Zeen did not stir, but just lay with the rattle in his throat.
He'll go off quickly, Barbara, it seems to me." "Not to-night," said Treze. "Warten, go to the loft, take the lamp and sift out a handful of maize; Zeen must have a bran bath at once." Warten went up the stair.
She came quietly up to the bed, looked at Zeen for some time, felt his pulse and then, looking up, said, very quietly: "Zeen's going.... Has the priest been?" "The priest?... It's so far and so late and the poor soul's so old...." "What have you given him?" "Haarlem oil, English salt...." "And we put his feet in bran water." Virginie stood thinking. "Have you any linseed-meal?" she asked. "No."
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