Yes, he saw it, and he saw something else. The wounded, groping, clawing, climbing man raised tortured body from above the last mist-wreath, a hundred feet below the very summit of the grade. But as he raised blistered eyes toward that top—what was it?—an illusion? It must be! No! It was not an illusion!
There on the peak, swathed in the Sunlight Glorious, Nathan saw—a woman!
Queenly and tall, she was, Diana of the Morning! Calm eyes were gazing afar across limitless billows of night mist. Sunlight glinted on breeze-blown tresses. About her arrow-straight figure floated in beautiful folds a cape of blue with a scarlet lining. She was a white woman, and blue and scarlet cape was the field uniform of the American Red Cross, the Greatest Mother in the World!
Nathan was hideous with grime and filth. Blood was caked upon him. One arm hung useless. He had to pull himself that last hundred feet by inches. But when he knew it was not an illusion, not a mirage of glazed eyeballs and mangled imagination, he uttered a cry, a piteous cry, and held out his one good hand.
He held out his one good hand to Woman Beautiful on the Hill Top—Woman Beautiful at the Summit—who seemed waiting there for him to come up, though the last hundred feet he came sightless and staggering.
That was the one big time when Nathan held out his hand in agony of body and spirit to Womanhood and Womanhood responded as a ministering angel.
Woman Beautiful started at the cry, turned her gaze down, beheld him. Then——
Swiftly she started down the grade—to greet him—to reach him—to give him the final help he needed to realize attainment—to reach the pinnacle whereon is Victory.
Woman Beautiful came down. In her eyes was all Tenderness. On her face was Sympathy Infinite. She uttered a little cry of compassion. She caught his hand.
“You poor, poor fellow!” were the words that Nathan heard. “You’re hurt! Let me help you!”