Now the Cathedral was high above the town, and the buzz in the nearest houses was tired, and only turned in its heavy sleep to say, ‘Listen to the wild cats in the mountains--to-morrow we will go and hunt them and the other wild beasts with dogs.’ So the paroxysm passed, and the child lay still again in Pierre’s arms, but with a dull fever burning in her cheeks and eyes. The night grew old, and the chill air smote the exhausted babe in spite of all the men’s care, and morning brought the raging fever that, if it be not stayed, means death to the white child. The men looked at each other with dismay in faces haggard with the strain of sleepless nights and dread anxiety. ‘Must we then fail after all?’ said Jacques, more to himself than to his comrade. He turned his eyes, gloomy with a bitter resentment at the rising sun. ‘Twenty hours--only twenty hours--and three lives hanging in the balance. I _will_ not fail; the child _shall_ live, and so shall we.’ ‘Water,’ said Pierre, and without another word took off his hat and fitted the rope through the brim to make a bucket. ‘Yes, water before the people are stirring,’ said Jacques. By the aid of the rope he descended with his extemporised bucket and stole down the hill under shelter of a wall to the nearest cottage--a laundry, as luck would have it--then, filling his bucket, he got back without being seen. Cecile was delirious, and as she raved and tossed, the tears stole down the cheeks of the big convict, and gently he stroked back the dark hair and carefully arranged the blanket so that no ray of the fast rising sun should fall on her. Jacques tore the flag of truce into shreds meet for bandages, and they bound them wet round the fevered head and laid the little frame in Pierre’s arms. They had no food left now except a few bananas, which they kept for the child. The fever seemed to abate somewhat, and presently she slept. The two men sat hour after hour gazing at each other, and at the sun creeping up in the heavens. Now and then Jacques looked away at the sea gleaming brilliant and free, with a yearning look in his eyes that told more than a thousand words, and from it he looked back again at the flushed cheek of the babe in his comrade’s arms, weighing and weighing all that the sea meant to him against the pangs of that helpless innocent. Pierre sat immovable; cramp had possession of his limbs, but he sat still for his life; if the child slept through the heat of the day they were saved--what was dearer than life was theirs--if she waked, he dared not think. Noon came and passed, and the two men sat on--sat on with the same yearning look in their eyes, and the same speechless constraint, and the child still slept. A change seemed to be stealing over the heated face. Jacques watched it anxiously. ‘The fever is leaving her,’ he said; ‘what will come after?’ Hope and despair alternated in his face.