CHAPTER III
NEARER
Joseph turned to his companion.
His face was white and worn by his long illness, but now it was suddenly overspread with a ghastly and livid greyness.
He murmured something far down in his throat, and at the inarticulate sound, Hampson, who had been bowing with a flush of gratitude to Mary, turned in alarm.
He saw a strange sight, and though he—in common with many others—was to become accustomed to it in the future, he never forgot his first impression.
Joseph's head had sunk back against the cushions of the cab. His mouth was open, the jaw having fallen a little, as though he had no control of it.
In a flash the terrible thought came to the journalist that his friend was in the actual throes of death.
Then, in another second or two, just as the block in the traffic ceased, and the cab moved on again, he knew that Joseph lived. The eyes which at first were dark and lustreless—had seemed to be turned inward, as it were—suddenly blazed out into life. Their expression was extraordinary. It appeared to Hampson as if Joseph saw far away into an illimitable distance. So some breathless watcher upon a mountain-top, who searched a far horizon for the coming of a great army might have looked. A huge eagle circling round the lonely summit of an Alp might have such a strange light in its far-seeing eyes.