“No,” said I, “you shall not. Come on. If the poor rascal ever gets over that mauling, he’ll deserve to. _That_ was neat, now. You are much wasted in Quakerdom, monsieur, when your English armies are needing good men.” He was following close at my heels, as I once more led the race through the woods. He made no answer. Either he was saving his wind, or he was angry at leaving a good job unfinished. I mocked myself in my own heart, thinking: “Paul, you fool, out of this big Quaker you have made a fighter, and he seems to like it. You may find your hands full with him, one of these days.” The thought was pleasant to me on the whole, for it is ill and dishonouring work to fight a man who is no fair match for you. That was something I never could stomach, and have ever avoided, even though at the cost of deep annoyance. Now the ground began to rise, and I guessed we were nearing the creek at a point where the banks were high. “Nearly there,” I whispered encouragingly, and thrust forward with sudden elation through a dense screen of underbrush. I was right—all too right. The leafage parted as parts a cloud. There was no ground beneath my feet. “Back!” I hissed wildly, and went plunging down a dark steep, striking, rebounding, clutching now at earth and now at air. At last it appeared to me that I came partly to a stop and merely rolled; but it no longer seemed worth while to grasp at anything. Chapter XIX The Borderland of Life Again I felt myself striving to grasp at something—nothing tangible now, but a long series of exhausting, infinitely confused dreams. My brain strove desperately to retain them, but the more it strove the more they slipped back into the darkness of the further side of memory; and, with one mighty effort to hold on to the last of the vanishing train, I opened my eyes, oppressed with a sense of significant things forgotten. My eyes opened, I say; and they stared widely at a patch of sky, of an untellable blue, sparkling gem-like, and set very far off as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope. As I stared, the sense of oppression slipped from me. I sat up; but the patch of sky reeled, and I lay back again, whereupon it recovered its adorable stability. I felt tired, but content. It was good to lie there, and watch that enchanted sky, and rest from thought and dreams.