He grew feverish. It was almost more than human flesh and blood could endure. His injured leg was afire. Every bend of his knee sent whips of flame up and down its cords, from ankle to thigh, from thigh to ankle. One, two, three, four, five, six! Slough, slough, slough! He grew hysterical; he began talking aloud. Oh, God, keep him from weakening! Give him the strength to go on!
God!
Into his mind came another time of desperate predicament back over the years,—a night when two terrified little boys squatted in wet alders and prayed the Almighty to save them from the terrible retribution of kissing a little girl.
God!
Nathan went down on his knees. It was not because he intended to kneel in prayer. It was because he stumbled and could not rise again.
“Dear God,” he cried hoarsely, wildly. “Dear God——”
In the awful void, no seeming contact with anything mundane but the feel of mud and steppe grass beneath his boots, he felt suddenly so light-headed that he wondered what was happening to him. Was he dying?
“Dear God—Dear God——”
He fainted. Or rather, he collapsed.