III
At midnight, when the whole isle lay in the full flood of the moon, Cathal stirred.
For three days and three nights he had been in that dark hollow, erect, wedged as a spear imbedded in the jaws of a dead beast. He had died thrice: with hunger, with thirst, with weariness. Then when hunger was slain in its own pain, and thirst perished of its own agony, and weariness could no more endure, he stirred with the death-throe.
“I die,” he moaned.
“Die not, O white one,” came a floating whisper, he knew not whence, though it was to him as though the crushing walls of oak breathed the sound.
“I die,” he gasped, and the froth bubbled upon his nether lip. With that his last strength went. No more could he hold his head above his shoulder, nor would his feet sustain him. Like a stricken deer he sank. So thin was he, so worn, that he slipt into a narrow crevice where dead leaves had been, and lay there, drowning in the dark.
Was that death, or a cold air about his feet, he wondered? With a dull pain he moved them: they came against no tree-wood—the coolness about them was of dewy moss. A wild hope flashed into his mind. With feeble hands he strove to sink farther into the crevice.
“I die,” he gasped, “I die now, at the last.”
“Die not, O white one,” breathed the same low sweet whisper, like leaves stirred by a nesting bird.
“Save, O save,” muttered the monk, hoarse with the death-dew.