The smoke was rising from the gorse-covered roof; the little black door was shut. Inside was Dan, Dan, Dan; and while Ewan's young wife lay in her grave, and Ewan's sister was worse than in her grave, and the good Bishop was brought low, Dan was there, there, and he was drinking and laughing, and his heart was cold and dead. Ewan lifted the latch and pushed the door open, and stepped into the tent. Lord of grace and mercy, what was there? On the floor of earth, in one corner of the small place, a fire of gorse, turf, and logs burned slowly; and near the fire Dan lay outstretched on a bed of straw, his head pillowed on a coil of old rope, one hand twisted under his head, the other resting lightly on his breast, and he slept peacefully like a child. Ewan stood for a moment shuddering and dismayed. The sight of Dan, helpless and at his mercy, unnerved his arm and drove the fever from his blood. There was an awful power in that sleeping man, and sleep had wrapped him in its own divinity. The hatchet dropped from Ewan's graspless fingers, and he covered his face. As a drowning man is said to see all his life pass before him at the moment of death, so Ewan saw all the past, the happy past--the past of love and of innocence, whereof Dan was a part--rise up before him. "It is true, I am going mad," he thought, and he fell back on to a bench that stood by the wall. Then there came an instant of unconsciousness, and in that instant he was again by the waters of the Jordan, and the ewes and the rams and the milch camels were toiling through the long grass, and Esau was falling on the neck of Jacob, and they were weeping together. CHAPTER XX BLIND PASSION AND PAIN Dan moved uneasily, and presently awoke, opened his eyes, and saw Ewan, and betrayed no surprise at his presence there. "Ah! Is it you, Ewan?" he said, speaking quietly, partly in a shamefaced way, and with some confusion. "Do you know, I've been dreaming of you--you and Mona?" Ewan gave no answer. Because sleep is a holy thing, and the brother of death, whose shadow also it is, therefore Ewan's hideous purpose had left him while Dan lay asleep at his feet; but now that Dan was awake, the evil passion came again. "I was dreaming of that Mother Carey's chicken--you remember it? when we were lumps of lads, you know--why, you can't have forgotten it--the old thing I caught in its nest just under the Head?" Still Ewan gave no sign, but looked down at Dan resting on his elbows. Dan's eyes fell upon Ewan's face, but he went on in a confused way: "Mona couldn't bear to see it caged, and would have me put it back. Don't you remember I clambered up to the nest, and put the bird in again? You were down on the shore, thinking sure I would tumble over the Head, and Mona--Mona--" Dan glanced afresh into Ewan's face, and its look of terror seemed to stupefy him; still he made shift to go on with his dream in an abashed sort of way: