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Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did it calmly, whispering to himself the while.

“I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die then,” he muttered to himself.

Presently he grasped an oar and paddled feebly.

A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place.

Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but began this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. First, step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forward, a journey as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it never end? It seemed a terrible climbing-up the sides of a cliff, and, as he struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but he realized that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard did not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the murmur of waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. But the bells were only the beatings of his heart–so loud, so swift.

He was on his knees now, crawling on–on–on. At last there came a light, suddenly bursting on him from a tent he was so near. Then he called, and called again, and fell forward on his face. But now he heard a voice above him. It was her voice. He had blindly struggled on to die near her, near where she was, she was so pitiful and good.

He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him. There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard.

“God help him–oh, God help him!” she was saying.

He drew a long, quiet breath. “I will sleep now,” he said, clearly.

He would hear the Whisperer no more.