But now the fuel had spent its force. He was growing horribly drowsy, yet struggled on, impelled by a latent sense of duty. At last he faltered in the middle of a sentence and stopped short. His chin sank on his breast. Someone was shaking him, he numbly felt a dash of something cold and wet in his face and opened his eyes. He tried to wipe away the water that trickled down his cheeks, when somebody's handkerchief was passed over them and he heard a voice, familiar yet far away. "Wake up, Micky!" it appealed. "You can't give up now, you're almost through!" "All right, Dick," he sighed wearily. "Where was I?" Dick prompted him and he resumed at the break, still in the same even, expressionless monotone, and continued until the dark shadows again gathered before his eyes and he swayed in his chair. Dick's voice again rang its sharp rally in his ears and he braced desperately, dictating the closing paragraphs. "That's all," he murmured. The receding footfalls of the stenographer sounded. Then came Dick's voice, a ghost of a voice from the other side of the world. "Now you can sleep," it said. Then returned again the shadows and silence. CHAPTER XXIII WANDERLUST O'Byrn reeled to and fro, in fierce combat with Shaughnessy. Again and again, while his breath came in gasps and his temples throbbed with his efforts, he had nearly gained the advantage, but the boss as often slipped from his hold with an ugly sneer, eluding him. And now occurred a grisly thing, for before his horrified eyes his enemy's body suddenly lengthened and changed into a monstrous, writhing serpent, wriggling sinuously toward him. He strove to scream, but could not, and the creature coiled itself in triumph near him. Upreared above its horrid neck was the swaying head, the ghastly face of Shaughnessy, who leered with his black serpent's eyes and darted a forked tongue. Now the creature crawled sluggishly toward him--coiled its horrid folds about him--and he could not move. The last coil tightened above his neck, while he gazed upward, strangling, into dead, unwinking, awful eyes, the eyes of Shaughnessy. Now he was borne backward; the creature was shattering his head upon the floor. Thud!--thud!--thud! O'Byrn fairly shot out of bed, groaning as the impact of his feet upon the floor sent a diabolical thrust of pain through his aching head. He pressed his temples convulsively and closed his eyes, blinded by the glare of sunlight through the window. Why, what was that? Somebody was pounding insistently at his door. It was this which had awakened him. "What is it?" he called. His landlady answered him. "There's a telegram for you, Mr. O'Byrn. A young fellow just brought it in from the Courier office. He said they'd sent him right over here with it." "Thanks," he mumbled indifferently. "Just shove it under the door, will you?"