The hatchet dropped from Ewan's graspless fingers, and he covered his face. As a drowning man is said to see all his life pass before him at the moment of death, so Ewan saw all the past, the happy past—the past of love and of innocence, whereof Dan was a part—rise up before him.
"It is true, I am going mad," he thought, and he fell back on to a bench that stood by the wall. Then there came an instant of unconsciousness, and in that instant he was again by the waters of the Jordan, and the ewes and the rams and the milch camels were toiling through the long grass, and Esau was falling on the neck of Jacob, and they were weeping together.
CHAPTER XX
BLIND PASSION AND PAIN
Dan moved uneasily, and presently awoke, opened his eyes, and saw Ewan, and betrayed no surprise at his presence there.
"Ah! Is it you, Ewan?" he said, speaking quietly, partly in a shamefaced way, and with some confusion. "Do you know, I've been dreaming of you—you and Mona?"
Ewan gave no answer. Because sleep is a holy thing, and the brother of death, whose shadow also it is, therefore Ewan's hideous purpose had left him while Dan lay asleep at his feet; but now that Dan was awake, the evil passion came again.
"I was dreaming of that Mother Carey's chicken—you remember it? when we were lumps of lads, you know—why, you can't have forgotten it—the old thing I caught in its nest just under the Head?"
Still Ewan gave no sign, but looked down at Dan resting on his elbows. Dan's eyes fell upon Ewan's face, but he went on in a confused way: