第15章

With that conviction strong within me, I volunteered for this service, as I would have volunteered for anything that set work and hardship and danger, like ramparts, between my misery and me.

With that conviction strong within me still, I tell you it is no matter whether I stay here with the sick, or go hence with the strong. I shall live till I have met that man! There is a day of reckoning appointed between us. Here in the freezing cold, or away in the deadly heat; in battle or in shipwreck; in the face of starvation; under the shadow of pestilence--I, though hundreds are falling round me, I shall live! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with one man!"

He stopped, trembling, body and soul, under the hold that his own terrible superstition had fastened on him. Crayford drew back in silent horror. Wardour noticed the action--he resented it--he appealed, in defense of his one cherished conviction, to Crayford's own experience of him.

"Look at me!" he cried. "Look how I have lived and thriven, with the heart-ache gnawing at me at home, and the winds of the icy north whistling round me here! I am the strongest man among you.

Why? I have fought through hardships that have laid the best-seasoned men of all our party on their backs. Why? What have _I_ done, that my life should throb as bravely through every vein in my body at this minute, and in this deadly place, as ever it did in the wholesome breezes of home? What am I preserved for? I tell you again, for the coming of one day--for the meeting with one man."

He paused once more. This time Crayford spoke.

"Richard!" he said, "since we first met, I have believed in your better nature, against all outward appearance. I have believed in you, firmly, truly, as your brother might. You are putting that belief to a hard test. If your enemy had told me that you had ever talked as you talk now, that you had ever looked as you look now, I would have turned my back on him as the utterer of a vile calumny against a just, a brave, an upright man. Oh! my friend, my friend, if ever I have deserved well of you, put away these thoughts from your heart! Face me again, with the stainless look of a man who has trampled under his feet the bloody superstitions of revenge, and knows them no more! Never, never, let the time come when I cannot offer you my hand as I offer it now, to the man I can still admire--to the brother I can still love!"

The heart that no other voice could touch felt that appeal. The fierce eyes, the hard voice, softened under Crayford's influence.

Richard Wardour's head sank on his breast.

"You are kinder to me than I deserve," he said. "Be kinder still, and forget what I have been talking about. No! no more about me;

I am not worth it. We'll change the subject, and never go back to it again. Let's do something. Work, Crayford--that's the true elixir of our life! Work, that stretches the muscles and sets the blood a-glowing. Work, that tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can do? Nothing to cut? nothing to carry?"

The door opened as he put the question. Bateson--appointed to chop Frank's bed-place into firing--appeared punctually with his ax. Wardour, without a word of warning, snatched the ax out of the man's hand.

"What was this wanted for?" he asked.

"To cut up Mr. Aldersley's berth there into firing, sir."

"I'll do it for you! I'll have it down in no time!" He turned to Crayford. "You needn't be afraid about me, old friend. I am going to do the right thing. I am going to tire my body and rest my mind."

The evil spirit in him was plainly subdued--for the time, at least. Crayford took his hand in silence; and then (followed by Bateson) left him to his work.