Stark knew the truth of this, and, striving in vain to note some mark that should indicate where Miller lay, he turned whence the light had shone.
"Trust me then. I'll get back in time! Don't sleep—keep shouting—keep shouting. We'll save you yet!"
Stark spoke cheerily as though already in the company of other men; but his hope perished as he turned and saw his friend a silent spot in the darkness—already half obliterated by snow. A sob rose in the man's throat, and he felt a tear like a spark of fire upon his cheek.
"The end of him—the cruel, bitter end of a great sailor and a good man. God's curse on those that murdered him!"
The cry came thickly and the shrieking wind carried it away. Stark staggered against the hill, sometimes upon his feet, sometimes on his knees. The light gleamed fitfully and directed him across the storm. Now it vanished behind curtains of snow; now it broke through once more, placid of flame and mellow of hue. Higher it towered and higher, until it seemed to the wanderer immediately above him. But even as he looked up to it, the sailor fell into a little rivulet and struggled with fresh bruises on to the further bank. A steep slope still subtended the space between himself and the shining window. The light beckoned him forward and forces unseen denied any further advance. He could stand no longer, but grovelled on yard by yard. Then a wall buried in the snow, raised a barrier, mountainous to his feebleness, and he remained motionless beneath it for a full minute. Peace was there and delicious silence. The snow warmed him; the coverlet crept up and up. It was pulled over his breast, neck, head, by gentle hands. He remembered his mother and her cradle-songs in his childhood. "'Tis the great Mother tucking me up," he thought. For a moment, as it seemed, the glow of health and vigour drove his blood along. Life was kissing him and saying 'good-bye.' His eyes shut; all present things began to sink away out of his mind. He smiled indifferently and, turning back along the pathway of consciousness, retraced his life's short road and passed its memories in final review. He remembered the defeat of the Marblehead and felt the sharp grief of failure. He saw the 'Stars and Stripes' flutter down, as the dying see their last sun sink; and that darkest emotion of his days reawakened now, mercifully held force enough to shatter the snow-trance. He opened his eyes, found an impulse of restored energy from his short respite, saw the light clear and sharp above, and surmounted the stone wall, but fell prone upon the other side. Then, with a sort of savage thankfulness that the last stage in the long fight was come, he rolled and crawled thirty yards more, and reached within twenty feet of Fox Tor Farm.
Powerless to lift a finger more, he lay there, stared at the light and blinked his eyes to keep the snow out of them, that the image of that shining window might remain clear. Its radiance would brighten his end, and the idea strangely comforted him. His wits reeled again; he prayed a wild prayer: he began to long for life with all his might, and the desire towards it poured in a frantic torrent over him. A signal set within his eyes by man smiled upon him, but he could not reach it. Thrice he shouted to Miller to follow him; to shout for his own salvation did not strike his mind; and whilst he cried aloud for the third time, the storm, that had increased to sweep the snow clear of one bright window, lulled, and for a moment drew a long, sobbing breath, ere it shrieked again. In that oasis of silence the man poured out his last cry to his friend; but only the raving voices from above answered it, for Miller had long passed beyond sense.
And yet, behind the granite of the farm were wakeful ears. Aloft Grace Malherb lay sleepless, while she watched a great heap of snow gather upon her bedroom hearth. The taper that was leading Stark to salvation beamed steadfastly to him; to Grace, under her blankets, it staggered and reeled and guttered, and fought strange draughts that crept through unknown chinks and crannies. Then, the hour being eleven, there fell that awful simultaneous suspiration of breath in the yelling throats of the storm. A mysterious silence touched the night and in the moment of it a human cry—wild and faint—reached the girl's straining ear. No other heard it, for though Malherb walked below, uneasy before the onset of this hurricane, his dwelling lay between him and the lost man, while for the rest all that household slept in peace.
Now did Death huddle close over Cecil Stark, hide him, muffle his speech, and steal his senses one by one; yet with his last throb of consciousness the sailor shouted on to Miller, and before his voice stilled and his life was in the act to close, Grace Malherb had reached her father where he walked and told her news. He showed much doubt, yet lost not a moment, and the last weak cry of the man in the snow saluted Beer and Malherb as they crept round the southern front of the farm with a lantern.
"Miller! Miller! Mil——!"
Then they heard no more, but guided by the voice, struggled across the snow to it and fell over a fellow-creature.