The other closed his eyes. "One thing perhaps." "What?" There was a sighing silence. "Ireland," came the quivering reply. "Sir," cried Kit, with flashing intuition, "you are dying for her." The other squeezed his fingers. "Ah, thank you, thank you! how generous! How kind! how most un-English!" "We mean well anyway," grunted the Parson. "Yes," said the other slowly. "You did her to death: but you did it for the best. That's England to the core!" The man's white bitterness struck like a sword. It was something new; it was something terrible. "Drogheda in the name of God!" "What's done can't be undone," growled the Parson, all the Englishman coming out in him. "I believe we're trying now." He bent over his fading enemy. A thousand dim emotions troubled his heart. Words surged up like waves in the fog of his mind and were gone again, unuttered. "Good-bye," he said at last gruffly, and made a stiff little bob. A hand sought his. The Parson hugged it between both his own, and turned, dumb still. CHAPTER LXXXVIII THE ADVENTURER The dusk began to shroud them. Beneath them the Parson was climbing out of the creek, making for the mouth of the drain. "That's a dear man," said the Gentleman. "He's so English--true as steel, and thick as mud." He rolled his head round. Kit caught the ghost of the old gay twinkle in his eyes. "Shall I tell you a secret?" "Yes." "What d'you think was in those powder-barrels?" "Beer," flashed the boy. "Sand, Little Chap--best Eastbourne sand." The boy rippled off into low laughter. The Parson, on hands and knees at the mouth of the drain, heard him and looked back. It was not quite his notion of how a dying should be conducted: still, they were both a bit mad, those two on the hill-side, both the poet-y kind, and so must be excused. "Yes," said the Gentleman, "I think I had the best of you there." "I think you had." His comrade's courage warmed the boy's heart. He had always associated a death-bed with drawn blinds, hushed voices, sniffling women on their knees and the like. And here lay this long-limbed man on the grass in the evening, the night bending to kiss him, the sea hushed behind, making ready for the plunge with the high heart and twinkling humour of the lad running down the sands to bathe. A little wind breathed on them chilly. The Gentleman began to shudder. The boy brooded over his dim outline. A sudden burning curiosity kindled his heart. "Is it--very aweful?" he ventured at last. "Not a bit," whispered the other. "It's as easy as living, once you know how." The boy rippled. "Have you ever done it before?" "Every hour of every day since the beginning." The boy hugged his hand. He then too had the sense of reiterated life, eternal here on earth. "Ah, you feel that," he said comfortably. "Then I know you're not afraid."