Always he kept his face turned toward the heights, and climbed. The afternoon, waning, found him groping slowly upward, the furious energy of his fever wearing off. His voice was weaker but he babbled unceasingly, through dry lips parted in set fever-grin.
"I hope I did not miss, Sakay. I hope I did not miss.... 'Imagine bristly Berkshire swine upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!'—and if they make a break, SMASH 'EM!... Don't wait, Deane, don't wait."
Unaware of the ill omened forms which, surrounding him while still the sun was high overhead, had kept apace all afternoon with his slackening gait, he halted under a huge tree, leaning against the trunk in sudden weariness. His voice, weak, tremulous, carried to an audience he could not see:
Just to know that years so fair might come again,
Awhile ...
Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice—
Your smile....
At the end of the song his hoarse laughter rasped through, the woods. He sank down, tried to rise, then lay where he had fallen beneath the great tree. He lay still while the last white rays of the dying sun faded from the topmost leaves far overhead, heedless of the narrowing circle of eyes which flashed in the dusk.
Then, as he weakly pressed a hot hand against his scalding eyes in a gesture of pain that was infinitely pathetic, the Hill People closed in.