The exhaustion that follows on great loss of blood was
upon the soldier who for the last half hour had lain there in the
darkness and the stillness, quietly waiting death, and not once seeking
even to raise his voice for succor lest the cry should reach and should
imperil his master.
The morning had broken now, but the storm had not lulled. The northern
winds were sweeping over the plains in tenfold violence, and the rains
burst and poured, with the fury of water-spouts on the crust of the
parched, cracked earth. Around them there was nothing heard or seen
except the leaden, angry mists, tossed to and fro under the hurricane,
and the white light of the coming day breaking lividly through
the clouds. The world held no place of more utter desolation, more
unspeakable loneliness; and in its misery Cecil, flung down upon
the sands beside him, could do nothing except--helpless to aid, and
powerless to save--watch the last breath grow feebler and feebler, until
it faded out from the only life that had been faithful to him.
By the fitful gleams of day he could see the blood slowly ebbing out
from the great gap where the lance-head was still bedded with its wooden
shaft snapped in two; he could see the drooped head that he had raised
upon his knee, with the yellow, northern curls that no desert suns had
darkened; and Rake's eyes, smiling so brightly and so bravely still,
looked up from under their weary lids to his.
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