He writhed round to strike in the dark at the senseless mass, in the madness of terror and pain deeming the boulder itself had moved with malignant intelligence, not merely according to the preponderate laws that lift the world. To him the presence of infernal powers was manifest in this agent. In foul warfare they held him fast by the heel, and mocked the impotent spirit within the bonds of flesh. The dark grew pregnant with evil beings as he struggled to swooning.
Pray for us, faithful hearts, pray! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for her service! Then he prevailed, and out of the teeth of hell he wrenched his heel.
Broken, crippled, strengthless, Christian crawled over the sand to the spot where he would die. Indistinguishable in the dark was the furrow he left stained till the tide should come: long before daylight broke the tide would come up to smooth and whiten it. He knew he was dying, and, touching the ended rowan, rendered thanks that it was to be there. All was nearly over, pain and a foolish, arrogant hope on which he had staked his life: presently, when he was dead, Diadyomene would come, to overstep his body, eluding there the toils. He misliked the thought that her feet might go red from treading him, and he stretched about weakly for briny hollows along the rock to cleanse the hot, slow oozing that chilled and stiffened into long stripes.
Why should he be gasping still, as breathless as after his hardest race, as after his mightiest heft? He required breath to help endurance of thirst and exorbitant pain; air could he gasp in, deep and free, and yet he wanted for more.
Why he should be dying, and how, Christian did not know. Life's centre had been stricken mortally quicker than a lightning-flash, too subtly for the brain to register any pain, so unmistakably he wondered only he was yet alive. From breath to breath he awaited another touch and a final, yet nothing lacked for vital order save air, air, more air. At short, merciful intervals he drifted out of the range of any pain.
On this his third death he did not so very greatly shrink from passing out of the body to stand before the face of his Maker. He could not take up any meaning for prayer. He was discarded from service; perfect justice had tried him, judged him, and condemned him as unfit. It was bitter for him; but review of his finishing span of life, its sin, failure, impotence, brought him to acquiescence. 'Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory' was all he had of prayer.
The apprehension of each human principle was straitened, by darkness about him, by pain in strong possession, by recognition of death closing in. As visitants to his heart from some far-distant sphere came Rhoda, Lois, Diadyomene; they vanished away; he could not keep them close—not even Diadyomene. 'Dear love, my love!'
Through the dark she came.
He rose to his knees, aware of a moving glimmer of grey, nearing, near. At her swift, beautiful pace she made for the sea. Suddenly she stood. He heard the catch of her breath; swiftly the dim oval of her face was turned to him; then away. She swayed back a step; she swayed forward; hung a moment at poise upright; reeled aside, and fled back into the dark.
Then Christian found he had yet strong faculty for life. He had retained small certainty that she had not long passed him by; speculation had fallen faint. Lo! she was here, controlled, and he not dead. He could pray, for her and for a little life, passionately.