And first, while she still lay across his knees, he filled his pistol.  Because she must die quickly if the Hun came.  For when the Hun comes death is woman’s only sanctuary.

So he prepared a swift salvation for her.  And, if the Hun came or did not come, still this last refuge must be secured for her before the creeping shadows caught him and the light in his mind died out.

With his loaded pistol lifted he sat a moment, staring into the woods out of bloodshot eyes; then he summoned all his strength and rose, letting his unconscious comrade slip from his knees to the bed of dead leaves.

Now with his knife he tried the rocky forest floor again, feeling blindly for water.  He tried slashing saplings for a drop of sap.

The great tree that had fallen had broken off a foot above ground.  The other tree slanted above a dry gully at such an angle that it seemed as though a touch would push it over, yet its foliage was still green and unwilted although the mesh of roots and earth were all exposed.

He noted this in a dull way, thinking always of water.  And presently, scarcely knowing what he was doing, he placed both arms against the leaning trunk and began to push.  And felt the leaning tree sway slowly earthward.

Then into the pain and confusion of his clouding mind something flashed with a dazzling streak of light—­the flare-up of dying memory; and he hurled himself against the leaning tree.  And it slowly sank, lying level and uprooted.

And in the black bed of the roots lay darkling a little pool of water.

The girl’s eyes unclosed on his.  Her face and lips were dripping under the sopping, icy sponge of green moss with which he was bathing her and washing out her mouth and tongue.

Into her throat he squeezed the water, drop by drop only.

It was late in the afternoon before he dared let her drink.

During the night she slept an hour or two, awoke to ask for water, then slept again, only to awake to the craving that he always satisfied.

Before sunrise he took his pack, took both her shoes from her feet, tore some rags from the lining of her skirt and from his own coat, and leaving her asleep, went out into the grey dusk of morning.

When he again came to the poisoned spring he unslung his pack and, holding it by both straps, dragged it through marsh grass and fern, out through the fringe of saplings, out through low scrub and brake and over moss and lichens to the edge of the precipice beyond.

And here on a scrubby bush he left fragments of their garments entangled; and with his hobnailed heels he broke crumbling edges of rock and smashed the moss and stunted growth and tore a path among the Alpine roses which clothed the chasm’s treacherous edge, so that it might seem as though a heavy object had plunged down into the gulf below.

Such bowlders as he could stir from their beds and roll over he dislodged and pushed out, listening to them as they crashed downward, tearing the cliff’s grassy face until, striking some lower shelf, they bounded out into space.