No human enemy came upon us. The fire blazed and roared, and the man who lay in its rosy glare raved on, crying out now and then at the top of his voice; but on that night of all nights, of all years, light and voice drew no savage band to put out the one and silence the other forever.
Hours passed, and as it drew toward midnight Diccon sank into a stupor. I knew that the end was not far away. The wolves were gone at last, and my fire was dying down. He needed my touch upon his breast no longer, and I went to the stream and bathed my hands and forehead, and then threw myself face downward upon the bank. In a little while the desolate murmur of the water became intolerable, and I rose and went back to the fire, and to the man whom, as God lives, I loved as a brother.
He was conscious. Pale and cold and nigh gone as he was, there came a light to his eyes and a smile to his lips when I knelt beside him. "You did not go?" he breathed.
"No," I answered, "I did not go."
For a few minutes he lay with closed eyes; when he again opened them upon my face, there were in their depths a question and an appeal. I bent over him, and asked him what he would have.
"You know," he whispered. "If you can... I would not go without it."
"Is it that?" I asked. "I forgave you long ago."
"I meant to kill you. I was mad because you struck me before the lady, and because I had betrayed my trust. An you had not caught my hand, I should be your murderer." He spoke with long intervals between the words, and the death dew was on his forehead.
"Remember it not, Diccon," I entreated. "I too was to blame. And I see not that night for other nights,--for other nights and days, Diccon."
He smiled, but there was still in his face a shadowy eagerness. "You said you would never strike me again," he went on, "and that I was man of yours no more forever--and you gave me my freedom in the paper which I tore." He spoke in gasps, with his eyes upon mine. "I'll be gone in a few minutes now. If I might go as your man still, and could tell the Lord Jesus Christ that my master on earth forgave, and took back, it would be a hand in the dark. I have spent my life in gathering darkness for myself at the last."