He found that by a backward contortion he
could bring himself erect again, and that for a few minutes after each
respite it was not so difficult for him to stand.
After a third effort he turned again toward Neil. A groan of horror rose
to his imprisoned lips. His companion's face was full upon him, ghastly
white; his eyes were wide and staring, like balls of shimmering glass in
the starlight, and his throat was straining at the fatal rawhide!
Nathaniel heard no sound, saw no stir of life in the inanimate figure.
A moaning, wordless cry broke through the cloth that gagged him.
At the sound of that cry, faint, terrifying, with all the horror that
might fill a human soul in its inarticulate note, a shudder of life
passed into Neil's body. Weakly he flung himself back, stood poised for
an instant against the stake, then fell again upon the deadly thong.
Twice--three times he made the effort, and failed. And to Nathaniel,
staring wild eyed and silent now, the spectacle was one that seemed to
blast the very soul within him and send his blood in rushing torrents of
fire to his sickened brain. Neil was dying! A fourth time he struggled
back. A fifth--and he held his ground. Even in that passing instant
something like a flash of his buoyant smile flickered in his face and
there came to Nathaniel's ears like a throttled whisper--his name.
"Nat--"
And no more.
The head fell forward again. And Nathaniel, turning his face away, saw
something come up out of the shimmering sea, like a shadow before his
blistering eyes, and as his own limbs went out from under him and he
felt the strangling death at his throat there came from that shadow a
cry that seemed to snap his very heartstrings--a piercing cry and (even
in his half consciousness he recognized it) a woman's cry! He flung
himself back, and for a moment he saw Neil struggling, the last spark of
life in him stirred by that same cry; and then across the white sand two
figures flew madly toward them and even as the hot film in his eyes grew
thicker he knew that one of them was Marion, and that the other was
Winnsome Croche.
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