Then the wild gleam faded from his eyes, and in a quavering voice—a mere ghost of his old pompous manner—he exclaimed:
“To the Guards’ Club, Waterloo Place! Do it in twenty minutes, driver, and the half sovereign is yours. Go by way of Piccadilly; it’s the near cut.”
A moment later he added: “I’ll be late. What beastly luck!”
Then a swift change passed over his face.
“Ha! ha! There’s the light again,” he cried exultantly. “Look, Carrington, look——” His lips trembled over the unfinished sentence, and without another word he dropped back on the logs and lay there perfectly motionless.
This was the last thing that Guy remembered.
The torch still burned beside him, and the raft plunged on its dizzy course, but his mind was wandering far away, and the past was being lived over again.
He was riding through London streets, dining with his old friends at the club, pulling a skiff over the placid current of the Thames, shooting quail on his brother’s estate, dancing at a ball at Government House, Calcutta, marching through Indian jungles at the head of his men, plotting the capture of the Rajah, Nana Sahib, in far-away Burma—thus the merciful past stole his mind away from the horrors of the present, and he alternately smiled or shuddered as he recalled some pleasant association or stern reminiscence of peril.
So the hours passed on. The torch faded and dimmed, burned to a charred ember, and then went out.
The water hissed and boiled, crashing on rocks and shoals, beating its fury against the barren shores, and rushing down the narrow channel at an angle that was frightful and appalling.