And death was close beside them all the time, lying in wait for that gallant spirit, like a beast of prey.
"O God, is there another Africa, where we shall meet that brave, good man again?" cried Allan. "Which of our modern teachers is right?—Liddon, who tells us that Christ rose from the dead; or Clifford, who tells us there is nothing—nothing: no Great Companion, no Master or Guide: only ourselves and our faithful service for one another—only this poor humanity?"
He looked up appealingly, expecting to see Geoffrey's face on the other side of the bed; but he was alone. Geoffrey had fled from the presence of death. He had rushed out into the wilderness. It was late in the following afternoon when he came back. The men had dug a grave under a great sycamore, and Allan was about to read the funeral service, when his fellow-traveller reappeared.
White, haggard, with wild eyes, and clothes stained with mire and sedge, the red clay of the forest paths, the green slime of swamp and bog, Allan could only look at him in pitying wonder.
"Where in Heaven's name have you been?" he asked, looking up from the rough basket-work coffin—bamboo and bulrush—interwoven by native hands.
"I don't know. Out yonder, between the plain and the river. I was a craven to fly from the face of death—I, a soldier," with a short, ironical laugh. "I don't know how it was with me last night. I couldn't bear it. I had been thinking of that verse in the gospel—'One shall be taken,' but I didn't think it would be that one—the hardy, experienced traveller. It might have been you or I. Not he, Allan. It was a blow, wasn't it?—a blow that might shake a strong man's nerves!"
Allan stretched out his hand to his comrade in silence, and they clasped hands, heartily on Allan's part; and his grip was so earnest that he did not know it clasped a nerveless hand.
"It was a crushing blow," he said gravely. "I don't blame you for being scared. You have come back in time to see him laid in his grave, and to say a prayer with me."
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, with a hopeless look.
"Where do our prayers go, I wonder? We know no more than the natives, when they sacrifice to their gods. Isn't it rather feeble to go on praying when there never comes any answer? I saw you praying last night—wrestling with God in prayer, as pious people call it. I saw your forehead damp with agony, your lips writhing—every vein in your clasped hands standing out like whipcord. I watched you, and was sorry, and would have given ten years of my life to save his; but I couldn't pray with you. And, you see, there came no answer. Inexorable Nature worked out her own problem in her own way. Your prayers—my silence; one was as much use as the other. Nobody heeded us; nobody cared for us. The blow fell."