THE FACE IN THE STORM
The first thing of which Tom was fully conscious was of a face very near him. A face drawn and distorted by strain amounting to agony. A face rigidly set in the maintenance of superhuman effort. It was grim, even ghastly in the mingled suffering and resolve that it bespoke.
Even as Tom saw it in his dawning consciousness, a kind of despair crept over it and this was swallowed up in a still more overpowering resolve. The mouth was set like the jaws of a vice. Here were physical strength and power of will united to the very utmost. And yet they seemed to fail little by little to be inadequate.
Close by Tom saw two bare arms upright and rigid with the veins standing out like ridges. They supported a great fallen trunk which lay almost prone. The eyes of that face were far away and intent as if seeking something far off in the woods.
Tom Slade had seen that distant stare before. In the strain of sustained and violent effort the face had the drawn look of age upon it. Gaunt, haggard, troubled and set. It was like a face grown old over night.
Tom Slade had seen that aged face before. It was not in the war that he had seen it. Here was the ever baffling miracle of kin resemblance with two score years eliminated by one little minute of sublime effort and suffering.
Tom Slade had seen that face before.
Yet perhaps it was only his languid, returning consciousness that conjured up a kind of recognition in that rigid, strained countenance. At all events he was too weak to feel intense surprise.
“Pop,” he murmured, with the faintest suggestion of a laugh at the incongruity of the thing.
“Well I’ll be—Pop Dyk— How the dickens did you—”