“Who is that man?  He died—­he died so long ago!  And yet——­”

Cecil’s head was sunk on his chest; he never spoke, he never moved; he knew the helpless, hopeless misery that waited for the one who found him living only to find him also standing before his open grave.  He saw nothing; he only felt the crushing force of his friend’s arms flung round him, as though seizing him to learn whether he were a living man or a spector dreamed of in delirium.

“Who are you?  Answer me, for pity’s sake!”

As the swift, hoarse, incredulous words poured on his ear, he, not seeking to unloose the other’s hold, lifted his head and looked full in the eyes that had not met his own for twelve long years.  In that one look all was uttered; the strained, eager, doubting eyes that read their answer in it needed no other.

“You live still!  Oh! thank God—­thank God!”

And as the thanksgiving escaped him, he forgot all save the breathless joy of this resurrection; forgot that at their feet the yawning grave was open and unfilled.  Then, and only then, under that recognition of the friendship that had never failed and never doubted, the courage of the condemned gave way, and his limbs shook with a great shiver of intolerable torture; and at the look that came upon his face, the look of death, brute-like anguish, the man who loved him remembered all—­remembered that he stood there in the morning light only to be shot down like a beast of prey.  Holding him there still with that strong pressure of his sinewy hands, he swore a great oath that rolled like thunder down the hard, keen air.

“You! perishing here!  If they send their shots through you, they shall reach me first in their passage!  O Heaven!  Why have you lived like this?  Why have you been lost to me, if you were dead to all the world beside?”

They were the words that his sister had spoken.  Cecil’s white lips quivered as he heard them; his voice was scarcely audible as it panted through them.

“I was accused—­”

“Aye!  But by whom?  Not by me!  Never by me!”

Cecil’s eyes filled with slow, blinding tears; tears sweet as a woman’s in her joy, bitter as a man’s in his agony.  He knew that in this one heart at least no base suspicion ever had harbored; he knew that this love, at least, had cleaved to him through all shame and against all evil.

“God reward you!” he murmured.  “You have never doubted?”

“Doubted?  Was your honor not as my own?”

“I can die at peace then; you know me guiltless—­”

“Great God!  Death shall not touch you.  As I stand here not a hair of your head shall be harmed—­”

“Hush!  Justice must take its course.  One thing only—­has she heard?”

“Nothing.  She has left Africa.  But you can be saved; you shall be saved!  They do not know what they do!”

“Yes!  They but follow the sentence of the law.  Do not regret it.  It is best thus.”