“You can sit here as in an arm-chair,” said Cary, helping him down to one of those square natural seats so common in the granite tors.

“Good; now turn my face to the Shutter.  Be sure and exact.  So.  Do I face it full?”

“Full,” said Cary.

“Then I need no eyes wherewith to see what is before me,” said he, with a sad smile.  “I know every stone and every headland, and every wave too, I may say, far beyond aught that eye can reach.  Now go, and leave me alone with God and with the dead!”

They retired a little space and watched him.  He never stirred for many minutes; then leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and so was still again.  He remained so long thus, that the pair became anxious, and went towards him.  He was asleep, and breathing quick and heavily.

“He will take a fever,” said Brimblecombe, “if he sleeps much longer with his head down in the sunshine.”

“We must wake him gently if we wake him at all.”  And Cary moved forward to him.

As he did so, Amyas lifted his head, and turning it to right and left, felt round him with his sightless eyes.

“You have been asleep, Amyas.”

“Have I?  I have not slept back my eyes, then.  Take up this great useless carcase of mine, and lead me home.  I shall buy me a dog when I get to Burrough, I think, and make him tow me in a string, eh?  So!  Give me your hand.  Now march!”

His guides heard with surprise this new cheerfulness.

“Thank God, sir, that your heart is so light already,” said good Jack; “it makes me feel quite upraised myself, like.”

“I have reason to be cheerful, Sir John; I have left a heavy load behind me.  I have been wilful, and proud, and a blasphemer, and swollen with cruelty and pride; and God has brought me low for it, and cut me off from my evil delight.  No more Spaniard-hunting for me now, my masters.  God will send no such fools as I upon His errands.”

“You do not repent of fighting the Spaniards.”

“Not I:  but of hating even the worst of them.  Listen to me, Will and Jack.  If that man wronged me, I wronged him likewise.  I have been a fiend when I thought myself the grandest of men, yea, a very avenging angel out of heaven.  But God has shown me my sin, and we have made up our quarrel forever.”

“Made it up?”

“Made it up, thank God.  But I am weary.  Set me down awhile, and I will tell you how it befell.”

Wondering, they set him down upon the heather, while the bees hummed round them in the sun; and Amyas felt for a hand of each, and clasped it in his own hand, and began: