Mary, blanched with fear, went to find Tom.
"Tom," she said, "he's sinking again. Lennie says it's because he doesn't want to live."
Tom silently threw down his tool, and walked with her into the house. It was obvious he was sinking again.
"Jack!" said Tom in a queer voice, bending over him. "Mate! Mate!" He seemed to be calling him into camp.
Jack's expressionless, fever-dilated, blood-shot eyes opened again. The whites were almost scarlet.
"Y' aren't desertin' us, are y'?" said Tom, in a gloomy, reproachful tone. "Are y' desertin' us, mate?"
It was the Australian, lost but unbroken on the edge of the wilderness, looking with grim mouth into the void, and calling to his mate not to leave him. Man for man, they were up against the great dilemma of white men, on the edge of the white man's world, looking into the vaster, alien world of the undawned era, and unable to enter, unable to leave their own.
Jack looked at Tom and smiled faintly. In some subtle way, both men knew the mysterious responsibilities of living. Tom was almost fatalistic-reckless. Yet it was a recklessness which knew that the only thing to do was to go ahead, meet death that way. He could see nothing but meeting death ahead. But since he was a man, he would go ahead to meet it, he would not sit and wait.
Jack smiled faintly, and the courage came back to him. He began to rally.
The next morning, he turned to Mary and said: