Yes, perspiration had arisen, nature’s healing dew; not the awful damps of swift-coming death. Lucius knelt by the rough bed, and thanked God for this happy change. How sweet was prayer at such a moment! He thought of that murderous wretch in the forest, waiting for the death he had sought to defer by famine’s last loathsome resource; that revolting expedient which it was horror to think of—a lost wretch without a hope beyond the grave, without belief in a God. On his knees, his breast swollen by the rapture of gratitude and glad surprise, Lucius thought of that wretch almost with pity. He made a strong broth with some of the buffalo flesh, and fed his patient by spoonfuls. To rally from such prostration must needs be a slow process; but once hopeful of his friend’s recovery, Lucius was content to wait for the issue in quiet confidence. He told Absalom his adventure in the forest, the hideous discovery of the faithful Indian’s fate. ‘Vat for a man! And vhen he has digesded the Indian, and feels again vhat boor Geoffrey used to gall a vaguum, he vill gome and ead us,’ said the German despondently. ‘He will not cross this threshold. What! do you think I would let that ravening beast approach _him_?’ pointing to the prostrate figure on the bed. ‘I have told him what I should do if he came here. He knows the penalty.’ ‘You vould gill him?’ ‘Without one scruple.’ ‘I tink you are in your right,’ answered Absalom tranquilly. ‘It is an onbleasant itea do be eaden.’ Two days passed slowly. Geoffrey rallied. Very slow was the progress towards recovery—almost imperceptible to the non-professional eye, but it was progress. Lucius perceived it, and was thankful. He had not slept since that night in the forest, but watched all night beside the patient’s bed—his gun within reach of his hand, loaded with ball. On the third night of his watch, when Geoffrey had been wandering a little, and then had fallen into a placid slumber, there came a sound at the door—a sound that was neither the waving of a pine-branch nor the cry of bird or beast; a sound distinctly human. Lucius had barricaded his door with a couple of pine-trunks, placed transversely, like a St. Andrew’s cross. The door itself was a fragile contrivance (three or four roughly-hewn planks nailed loosely together), but the St. Andrew’s cross made a formidable barrier. He heard the door tried with a rough impatient hand. The pine-trunks groaned, but held firm. The door was shaken again; then, after a moment’s pause, the same impatient hand shook the little parchment window. This offered but a frail defence; it rattled, yielded, then, after one vigorous thrust, burst inward, and a dark ragged head and strong bony shoulders appeared in the opening. ‘I am starving,’ cried a hoarse voice, faint, yet with a strange force in its hollow tones. It was the voice of the man who called himself Matchi. ‘Give me shelter—food—if you have any to give. It is my last chance,’ he gasped breathlessly.