"'Tis a great thought that you and I are bigger than this weather. A man's soul can steer through the worst storm ever loosed against earth--steer a straight course and fear no evil of earth or sea. This dust of us will soon be ice, my lad. We shall sink into this frozen wilderness as rain falls on a river; but we ourselves----" "Hope on, hope on," gasped the younger man. "We'll fight the British weather as we've fought the British ships. There's a shot in the locker yet!" They crawled forward, and Stark, himself failing slowly, well knew that the increasing weight upon his arm must soon bring him to earth with his friend. Miller was nearly spent. He began to speak fitfully, but rambled in his speech, and discussed men and matters beyond his companion's knowledge. For ten minutes they pressed on, but advanced little more than two hundred yards in the time. Snow still fell, though less heavily, and it seemed to Stark that the wind abated a trifle, but he could not be sure, for sensation was almost dead. His legs felt nothing, even when he struck them against the stones. They had followed a wide slope of the land, and now stood in the very shadow of death where Childe the Hunter's ruined cenotaph had risen, and where legend pointed to the sportsman's place of passing even on such a night, and in such an hour. There was a sudden rent in the snow-clouds at this moment, for out of heaven burst a blast so awful that it tore the inky curtains of the storm, swept the air clear along its hurricane ways and brought a fleeting glimmer of light to earth. In the black chasm opened on high reeled suns, and the flames of bygone ages flashed into the eyes of dying men. Then those silvery star-fires were swallowed up again, and the tempest, shrieking like a fury, tumbled its pall over them to lift it no more. Yet in that blast another light than those of the indifferent universe had touched upon Cecil Stark's fainting eyes. Dear as the smile of a friend, as the sound of a voice, as the hand of a man stretched to save, he had marked a ruddy flash from one little window high aloft on the western face of Fox Tor Farm. Like a lighthouse lamp it hung above the chaos. It flashed serene and steadfast; then the blizzard thundered down again, and it vanished behind the snow. "All's over, old fellow," said Jonathan Miller. "I'm done for--fought and lost, and glad to go. My heart's stopping. Go on--good-bye." "Look, man, look! Right ahead! Ah! 'tis blotted again; but I saw it clear enough--lifted above us--a light." "I shall see it too--held out of Heaven to guide us. God is kind. The road's always clear to Him." "Be of good cheer yet! 'Twas an earthly light I saw--ruddy and heart-warming! Don't--don't--give up the fight when we're so near--one effort more--one----" For answer the other's hand relaxed, and he fell suddenly face downwards.