The doctor raised him a trifle, and moistened his lips with brandy as he gave him the pen. It scratched for a moment or two, and then fell from his relaxing fingers, while the man who took the paper wrote across the foot of it, and then would have handed it to Colonel Barrington, but that Dane quietly laid his hand upon it.
"No," he said. "If you want another witness take me."
Barrington thanked him with a gesture, and Courthorne, looking round, saw Stimson.
"You have been very patient, Sergeant, and it's rough on you that the one man you can lay your hands upon is slipping away from you," he said. "You'll see by my deposition that Winston thought me as dead as the rest of you did."
Stimson nodded to the magistrate. "I heard what was read, and it is confirmed by the facts I have picked up," he said.
Then Courthorne turned to Barrington. "I sympathize with you, sir," he said. "This must be horribly mortifying, but, you see, Winston once stopped my horse backing over a bridge into a gully when just to hold his hand would have rid him of me. You will not grudge me the one good turn I have probably done any man, when I shall assuredly not have the chance of doing another."
Barrington winced a little, for he recognized the irony in the failing voice, but he rose and moved towards the bed.
"Lance," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "it is not that which makes what has happened horrible to me, and I am only glad that you have righted this man. Your father had many claims on me, and things might have gone differently if, when you came out to Canada, I had done my duty by his son."
Courthorne smiled a little, but without bitterness. "It would have made no difference, sir, and, after all, I led the life that suited me. By and by you will be grateful to me. I sent you a man who will bring prosperity to Silverdale."
Then he turned to Stimson, and his voice sank almost beyond hearing as he said, "Sergeant, remember, Winston fancied I was dead."