"Here, safe with me, Champney." He leaned over him, but saw that he was not recognized.
"Who are you?"
"Your friend, Father Honoré."
"Father Honoré—" he murmured, "I don't know you." He gave a convulsive start—"Where are the Eyes gone?" he whispered, a look of horror creeping into his own.
"There are none here, none but mine, Champney. Listen; you are safe with me, safe, do you understand?"
He gave no answer, but the dazed look returned. He moistened his parched lips with his tongue and swallowed hard. Father Honoré held a glass of water to his mouth, slipping an arm and hand beneath his head to raise him. He drank with avidity; tried to sit up, but fell back exhausted. The priest busied himself with preparing some hot beef extract on the little stove. When it was ready he sat down by the cot and fed it to him spoonful by spoonful.
"Thank you," Champney said quietly when the priest had finished his ministration. He turned a little on his side and fell asleep.
The sleep was that which follows exhaustion; it was profound and beneficial. Evidently no distress of mind or body marred it, and for every sixty minutes of the blessed oblivion, there was renewed activity in nature's ever busy laboratory to replenish the strength that had been sacrificed in this man's protracted struggle to escape his doom, and, by means of it, to restore the mental balance, fortunately not too long lost....
When he awoke, it was to full consciousness. The sun was setting. Behind the Highlands of the Navesink it sank in royal state: purple, scarlet, and gold. Upon the crisping blue waters of Harbor, Sound, and River, the reflection of its transient glory lay in quivering windrows of gorgeous color. It crimsoned faintly the snow that lay thick on the multitude of city roofs; it blazoned scarlet the myriad windows in the towers and skyscrapers; it filled the keen air with wonderful fleeting lights that bewildered and charmed the unaccustomed eyes of the metropolitan millions.
Champney waited for it to fade; then he turned to the man beside him.