He lay quiet a long time after that. It was a new and terrible thought, and he found it hard to adjust his mind to it. "His life"--he had always assumed that that at least was his own unforfeitable possession. He had never known the moment when eager nerve and artery and brain-cell had not leapt to obey his will. And now it seemed his whole house of life was in revolt. His will, that iron captain-general of all these servile forces, was deposed. Well, he simply would not die. If he must obey the doctor, he must. And, after all, to a man tired in brain and body this restfulness of soft pillows, this utter quietness and shaded light, was sweet. Anything was better than that horrible thrill of weakness, that loosening of each intimate joint and muscle--anything! He turned his face from the light, and fell asleep. Toward evening he was told that Scales insisted on seeing him. He would have seen him; but the doctor was present, and interposed his fiat. The most that the doctor would allow was that Scales should send him a written message. The message came: "What are we to do?" It was accompanied by no explanation, but the words were ominous. He made an effort to grasp their meaning, but it escaped him. "Do what you will," he wrote. Then the blind wave of stupor overwhelmed him again. Why should he trouble? It was all right--everything was all right. It was a hard thing that a man who had worked all his life couldn't get one day's rest. He wasn't going to worry. Let Scales do the worrying; that was what he was paid for. Everything was all right--it must be all right ... and Scales was no fool. So he fell asleep again, and the black night settled on the city, and he heard no more the voices wailing in the darkness, "Another British defeat!"