"I remember!" he muttered. He made a feeble effort to rise, which Muhammed prevented by the steady pressure of a hand. "By the Lord, he shall pay for it--and you!" And then, meeting that glance, and stricken by the revulsion from the hope which the events of the last few minutes had engendered, Claire surrendered to a sense of despair. What could the future hold for her except--the worst? As far as she was concerned, the deal with fate was finished and she had lost finally. But even despair could not crush the maternal, protective instinct which had sprung into being in the silo of El Dibh, which had grown into full flower through the last dark hours in the lazaret. She spoke quickly, on the spur of the moment. "Him you cannot hurt," she answered. "He is escaping you; he is dying." Landon struggled under Muhammed's restraining hand. "Is he?" he cried, looking at Miller. "Is he? He's not going before I get my hands on him! For God's sake, man, say he isn't! Say it isn't true!" Miller shrugged his shoulders apathetically. "We'll do all we can," he temporized. Landon gnashed his teeth and burst into hysterical weeping. "Ah, but I wanted to have my will of him!" he cried. "It's he and all the thousands like him that have put me here! The cursed hypocrites! I slipped; I went against their code, and they jostled each other to trample me when I was down! And I?" He shook his fist weakly into the night. "I? I was no worse than the best of them. I was only myself--the natural man--and they flung me out! And I could have repaid every stab, every kick, on him--on him!" He writhed and then suddenly steadied himself. Again his eyes focussed evilly upon Claire. "Go to him!" he ordered. "Go to him and do your utmost for him! Bring him round and I'll be light with you; I'll save you--the worst of it. Let him slip through your fingers, and by every devil in Hell I'll make you pay double, double, and double that!" She turned from him silently and in turning made a little stagger. Miller's hand slipped under her elbow; for an instant she found that he was supporting her. She stirred away from him in uncontrollable disgust. A moment later she had pulled herself together; she murmured a disjointed sentence of thanks, and moved away towards the scuppers where Aylmer still lay motionless, realizing, as she reached it, that the gray man was still at her side. He was looking at her keenly, but with an impassive gaze which told her nothing. She bent her face to the white lips. Faintly, but still distinct, she felt the breath pass from them. She rose with a little gesture of appeal. "You must help me," she said. "We must get him below." For a moment he hesitated. Then he passed his arms behind the other's shoulders and lifted him. She bent and took his knees. Staggering again at first, but with growing steadiness, she helped to half carry, half drag him to the companion, into the cabin, to lay him, at last, on the floor of the lazaret.