The wood cracked and splintered with the shock.  He felt himself pitching forward and grabbed at the post to save himself.  The door swung back upon its hinges, and he burst into the hut headlong.

The flame of a candle glimmered in his eyes, momentarily dazzling him.  Then he heard a cry.  A figure sprang towards him—­a woman’s figure with outstretched arms waving him back!  Was he dreaming?  Was he mad?  It was Sylvia’s face, white and agonized, that confronted him—­Sylvia’s voice, but so strained that he hardly recognized it, broken and beseeching, imploring him for mercy.

“Oh, Burke—­for God’s sake—­don’t kill him!  Don’t kill him!  I will kill myself—­I swear—­if you do.”

He caught the outflung hands, gripping them hard, assuring himself that this thing was no illusion.  He looked into her eyes of wild appeal.

She attempted no, further entreaty, but she flung herself against him, impeding him, holding him back.  Over her shoulder he looked for Guy; and found him.

He was sitting crouched on a low trestle-bed at the further end of the hut with his head in his hands.  Burke turned to the girl who stood palpitating, pressed against him, still seeking with all her strength to oppose his advance.

Her wide eyes met his.  They were filled with a desperate fear.  “He is ill,” she said.

The roar of the rising water filled the place.  The ground under their feet seemed to be shaking.

Burke looked down at the woman he held, and a deadly sensation arose and possessed him.  For the moment he felt sick with an overpowering longing.  The temptation to take her just as she was and go was almost more than human endurance could bear.  He had undergone so much for her sake.  He had suffered so fiery a torture.  The evil impulse gripped and tore him like a living thing.

And then—­was it the purity of those eyes upraised to his?—­he was conscious of a change within him.  It was as if a quieting touch had been laid upon him.  He knew—­quite suddenly he knew—­what he would do.  The temptation and the anguish went out together like an extinguished fire.  He was his own master.

He bent to her and spoke, his words clear above the tumult:  “Help me to save him!  There is just a chance!”

He saw the swift change in her eyes.  She bent with a sharp movement, and before he could stop her he felt her lips upon his hand.  They thrilled him with a strange exaltation.  The memory of that kiss would go with him to the very Gate of Death.

Then he had reached Guy, was bending over him, raising him with urgent hands.  He saw the boy’s face for a moment, ashen in the flickering candlelight, and he knew that the task before him was one which it would take his utmost strength to accomplish.  But he exerted it and dragged him to his feet, half-supporting, half-carrying, him towards the open door, Sylvia helping on the other side.  The thought went through him that this was the last act that they would perform in partnership.  And somehow he knew that she would remember it later in the same way.