Then he saw them, young and old, women and children, the dead on the voyage, the dead in the first months of fever, the priest swinging in his robes, the sallow boy, screaming, under the currycomb. But it wasn't his quarrel. There were two doors open. One meant life, and a clean shirt, and Caterina's hand on his hand, by the rail of a ship, at night, while the moon climbed up in heaven like a silver woman. The other was death for all of them. He shut his eyes and chose death. "No, I won't," he said, in a voice he was surprised to find so even. Dr. Gentian sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Dying is so wasteful. You can have twenty-four hours to think it over, Andrew. I will see you again tomorrow, when they are up. Think it over. Sergeant," he called and struck on a bell. "I hate to hang you, Andrew--it will be a great nuisance. I had a parrot once that amused me. I had to wring its neck. It is much the same. You may take the prisoner back now, Sergeant, if you will." 6. "He gave me twenty-four hours," Andrew ended. He looked at his friend. "It is more than enough," said Sebastian. "We shall escape in twelve." Before the certitude of his tone the image of Dr. Gentian that towered in Andrew's mind like a genie rising from a bottle in a blue, magic fume, diminished gradually. He became what he was, a man of great parts, whose knowledge of his own abilities had swollen with power till it festered, and so spoiled a tyrant instead of making a king. Seen so, he was no longer terrific or even hateful, only beggared, as all men are beggared in one way or another who seek from life a passion more intense than the body can bear. He was a king in check--a torch inverted--a fire that wasted itself against a column of salt--and as Andrew began to perceive this, slowly and delicately as the slow lifting of a slab of bronze from his breast, the fear of death passed from him and left him composed. It would return, undoubtedly, but for this moment, brief as the flight of a bird between tree and tree, it had gone. He could smell the mignonette in his mother's garden. Dr. Gentian could kill them both, but that was all he could do. "What are you going to do, Sebastian, when we are free?" he said casually, out of a strange peace. "Tell the governor to free my people," said Sebastian. The cool stone of peace had touched at his lips as well, he spoke with the simplicity of a ghost. "When they are free--" he shrugged. "Who knows? Life is long--there are many things to do before the priest comes with his oil. If I had money I should like to buy a fishing-boat--my father was a fisherman. I should like to marry, too, and have a son. It is good to have a son to help you draw in the nets. And you, my friend?"