“Our honest servant will not fail one who is the comrade of kingly death, O my father,” said the blind poet, smiling in his faith.
“Must I pray for a miracle, Achilles?” said the old man, who looked to him in all things now.
“We would have thee be of good faith, my father,” said the poet. “Never yet was a destiny but that it fulfilled itself. The printing-presses are groaning under these pages of ours. To-morrow they will be strown like autumn leaves all about the floor of this little room.”
Yet the morrow came and the emissary did not return. Another morrow dawned and yet he came not. Day succeeded day; the dying poet became as one who has scarce the strength to raise his limbs; the sands grew less and less in the glass; yet still no breathless messenger issued forth from the streets of the great city.
In this long-drawn suspense such an anguish of despair besieged the old man, that again and again he turned to the poet for the sustenance which it was his to give.
“Be of good courage, O my father,” said the dying poet, yet at this time the whole of his right side was become paralyzed, so that he could no longer raise his right hand.
After listening full many weary nights and days for the ever-expected tap upon the shutters of the shop, there came at last the familiar sound in a December evening.
With unsteady limbs the old man went forth to unbar the door. Upon the threshold stood Dodson, worn and pale.
“Do not tell me the miracle has not happened,” cried the old man in a high, quavering tone.
“Yes, the miracle has happened,” said Dodson in a voice that was thin and unstrung.