After a time she spoke again.
“I—I think I’m going now, David. You said I’d outlast you and the men, but I shouldn’t want that. No, dear; there isn’t any pain, except in my head. I’m just—tired—and—sleepy.”
“You mustn’t give up, Vinnie!” he pleaded passionately. “We must live—both of us—to make it all come true! Listen! Isn’t that the men trying to cheer? O my God, I thank thee!”
A roaring blast of clean, fresh air, driven strongly enough to penetrate even to their distant retreat at the heading, fanned their faces. “The pipe!” he shouted; “they’ve got the pipe through and they’ve turned the air on. Vinnie—Vinnie!—we shall live, and it shall come true!”
But the sudden reversal from despair to hope had been too much for the strong heart. The yielding body David was clasping in his arms had become limp and unresponsive, and the lips were silent.
XXVIII
Regeneration
THE pipe of life, a four-inch steel tube which had been driven by screw-jack pressure through the mass of the slide as a result of Plegg’s inventive strugglings, soon refreshed the vitiated air in the sealed cavern. Beyond this, food, in well-wrapped paper cartridges, and hot coffee, in bottles, were passed through the tube, and the famished prisoners were able to break their long fast. That nothing within the possibilities should be lacking, Plegg ran electric wires, with an incandescent bulb attached, through the conduit, and thus the feast was lighted.
In the fast-breaking, Regnier ate with his men, but David carried his portion and Virginia’s a little apart. Though she had revived quickly in the splendid rebound of youth and health under the changed conditions, the king’s daughter ate sparingly and with eyes downcast, and was, in David’s eyes, more radiantly beautiful than she had ever been. After the keen edge of famine—David’s famine—was a little blunted, she looked up and met his glances bravely.
“We didn’t die, David, and—and you must forget,” she pleaded. “You will forget, won’t you?”
“Forget?—not if I live to be a million years old,” he avowed gravely. And after a pause: “You mustn’t be an Indian, Vinnie—to give, and then want the gift returned. I am going to talk to Plegg again in a few minutes, and you shall hear what I say to him.”