The affair was, perhaps, something of a fiasco, but they consoled themselves with the reflection that they would catch the vagabond next time, when they could run a little better and a little further, and he could run a little worse--or a good deal worse, in fact.
But for Bertie the chase was very far from done. He fled, not from things of flesh and blood, but from things of air--the wild imaginings of fever. On and on and on--over fields and hedges, dykes and ditches--on and on and on, until the day waned and the night had come.
And in the night his journey ended. Even delirium would no longer give strength unto his limbs. His style of going changed. Instead of running, like a maddened animal, straight forward, he went reeling, reeling, reeling, staggering from side to side.
Then he staggered down.
He rose no more. It was the end of the journey.
Chapter XXIII
[THE LAND OF GOLDEN DREAMS]
When he returned to life he was in his mother's arms. There were familiar faces round him, and, as out of a mist, familiar voices sounded in his ear.
He turned in his bed--for it was on a bed he was lying, and no longer on the stony ground--and opened his eyes, waking as from a delicious slumber.
Some one bent over him; some one laid a hand softly on his brow; some one's burning tears fell on his cheek. There was his mother standing by his side.