And perhaps, as the young watcher had been an early riser this morning, he was nodding a little over his decades when a sudden movement of his patient roused him. Mr. Wirt was awake, his eyes fixed steadily on Freddy’s face.
“Still here,” he murmured,—“still here? Boy,—little boy! Are you real or a death dream?”
It was a startling question; but Freddy had learned something of fever vagaries during the measles, when even some of the Seniors had lost their heads.
“Oh, I’m real!” he answered cheerfully. “I’m a real boy all right. I’m Freddy Neville, from St. Andrew’s College—”
“My God!” burst in a low cry from the pale lips.
“Yes,” said Freddy. “It’s time for you to say that,—to say your prayers, I mean; because—because—you’re very sick, and when people are very sick, you know, they—sometimes they die.”
“Die!” was the hoarse echo. “Aye, die as I have lived,—in darkness, despair! Lost—lost—lost!”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Boy as he was, Freddy felt his young heart thrill at the cry. “You’re not lost yet. You’re never lost while you live. You can always say an act of contrition, you know, and—and—” Freddy’s voice faltered, for the role of spiritual adviser was a new one; but he had not gone through the big Catechism last year without learning a young Catholic Christian’s obligations. “Would—would you like me to say an act of contrition for you?” he asked.
There was no answer save in the strange softening of the eyes fixed upon the boyish face. And, feeling that his patient was too far gone for speech, Freddy dropped on his knees, and in a sweet, trembling tone repeated the brief, blessed words of sorrow for sin, the plea for pardon, the promise of amendment. It had been a long, long time since those familiar words had fallen on his listener’s ears; a longer time since they had reached his heart. For years he had believed nothing, hoped nothing, feared nothing. Life had been to him a dull blank, broken only by reckless adventure; death, the end of all. But for three days and nights he had lain helpless, fever-smitten, stricken down in all his proud strength in this wilderness, with no friends but his dogs, no home but the ruined hut into which he had crawled for shelter, no human aid within reach or call. The derelict, as he had called himself to Dan, had drifted on the rocks beyond hope and help, as derelicts must. And in those three days and nights he had realized that for him there was no light in sea or sky,—that all was darkness forever.
And then young voices had broken in upon the black silence; and, opening his eyes, closed on hideous fever dreams, he had seen Freddy,—Freddy, who was not a dream; Freddy, who was kneeling by his side, whispering sweet, forgotten words of peace and hope and pardon; Freddy—Freddy—he could not speak, there was such a stirring in the depths of his heart and soul. He could only stretch out his weak, trembling hand, that Freddy met with a warm, boyish grip.