The night was still.  Only the draught from the wide-flung doors and windows stirred through the quiet rooms.  Mrs. Errol and Anne shared Bertie’s vigil in the room that opened out of that in which Lucas Errol was making his last stand.  Humbly, in a corner, huddled Tawny Hudson, rocking himself, but making no sound.

Within the room Capper sat at the foot of the bed, motionless, alert as a sentry.  A nurse stood like a statue, holding back the bellying window-curtain.  And on his knees beside the bed, the inert wrists gripped close in his sinewy fingers, was Nap.

The light of a shaded lamp shone upon his dusky face, showing the gleam of his watchful eyes, the crude lines of jaw and cheek-bone.  He looked like a figure carved in bronze.

For hours he had knelt so in unceasing vigilance, gazing unblinking and tireless at the exhausted face upon the pillow.  It might have been the face of a dead man upon which he gazed, but the pulses that fluttered in his hold told him otherwise.  Lucas still held feebly, feebly, to his chain.

It was nearly an hour after midnight that a voice spoke in the utter silence.

“Boney!”

“I’m here, old chap.”

“Good-bye, dear fellow!” It was scarcely more than a whisper.  It seemed to come from closed lips.

“Open your eyes,” said Nap.

Slowly the heavy lids opened.  The blue eyes met the deep, mysterious gaze focussed upon them.

Silent as a ghost Capper glided forward.  The nurse left the window, and the curtain floated out into the room, fluttering like an imprisoned thing seeking to escape.

“Ah, but, Boney—­” the tired voice said, as though in protest.

And Nap’s voice, thrilled through and through with a tenderness that was more than human, made answer.  “Just a little longer, dear old man!  Only a little longer!  See!  I’m holding you up.  Turn up the lamp, doctor.  Take off the shade.  He can’t see me.  There, old chap!  Look at me now.  Grip hold of me.  You can’t go yet.  I’m with you.  I’m holding you back.”

Capper trickled something out of a spoon between the pale lips, and for a little there was silence.

But the blue eyes remained wide, fixed upon those other fiery eyes that held them by some mysterious magic from falling into sightlessness.

Three figures had come in through the open door, moving wraith-like, silently.  The room seemed full of shadows.

After a while Lucas spoke again, and this time his lips moved perceptibly.  “It’s such a long way back, Boney,—­no end of a trail—­and all up hill.”

The flare of the lamp was full upon Nap’s face; it threw the harsh lines into strong relief, and it seemed to Anne, watching, that she looked upon the face of a man in extremity.  His voice too—­was that Nap’s voice pleading so desperately?

“Don’t be faint-hearted, old chap!  I’ll haul you up.  It won’t be so tough presently.  You’re through the worst already.  Hold on, Luke, hold on!”