[Illustration: NELLO LEFT HIS PICTURE AT THE DOOR]
Nello and Patrasche were left utterly alone; for one night in the week before the Christmas day death entered there and took away from life forever old Jehan Daas. who had never known of life aught save poverty and pain. He had long been half dead, incapable of any movement except a feeble gesture, and powerless for anything beyond a gentle word. And yet his loss fell on them both with a great horror in it; they mourned him passionately. He had passed away from them in his sleep, and when in the gray dawn they learned their bereavement, unbearable solitude and desolation seemed to close around them. He had long been only a poor, feeble, paralyzed old man who could not raise a hand in their defense, but he had loved them well; his smile always had welcomed their return. They mourned for him unceasingly, refusing to be comforted, as in the white winter day they followed the deal shell that held his body to the nameless grave by the little church. They were his only mourners, these two whom he had left friendless upon the earth— the young boy and the old dog.
Nello and Patrasche went home with broken hearts. But even of that poor, melancholy, cheerless home they were denied the consolation. There was a month's rental overdue for the little place, and when Nello had paid the last sad service to the dead he had not a coin left. He went and begged grace of the owner of the hut, a cobbler who went every Sunday night to drink his pint of wine and smoke with Baas Cogez. The cobbler would grant no mercy. He claimed in default of his rent every stick and stone, every pot and pan in the hut, and bade Nello and Patrasche to be out of it by to-morrow.
All night long the boy and the dog sat by the fireless hearth in the darkness, drawn close together for warmth and sorrow. Their bodies were insensible to the cold, but their hearts seemed frozen in them.
When the morning broke over the white, chill earth it was the morning of Christmas eve. With a shudder Nello clasped close to him his only friend, while his tears fell hot and fast on the dog's forehead.
"Let us go, Patrasche; dear, dear Patrasche!" he murmured. "We will not wait to be kicked out. Let us go."
They took the old accustomed road into Antwerp. The winner of the drawing prize was to be proclaimed at noon, and to the public building where he had left his treasure Nello made his way. On the step and in the entrance hall there was a crowd of youths—some of his age, some older, all with parents or relatives or friends. His heart was sick with fear as he went amongst them, holding Patrasche close to him.
The great bells of the city clashed out the hour of noon with brazen clamor. The doors of the inner hall were opened; the eager, panting throng rushed in. It was known that the selected picture would be raised above the rest upon a wooden dais.
A mist obscured Nello's sight, his head swam, his limbs almost failed him. When his vision cleared he saw the drawing raised on high; it was not his own. A slow, sonorous voice was proclaiming aloud that victory had been adjudged to Stephan Kiesslinger, born in the burg of Antwerp, son of a wharfinger in that town.
When Nello recovered consciousness he was lying on the stones without, and Patrasche was trying with every art he knew to call him back to life. In the distance a throng of youths of Antwerp were shouting around their successful comrade and escorting him with acclamation to his home upon the quay.