An inarticulate howl of rage burst from Landon's lips. He rocked himself to and fro; he made as if he would beat his broken hands upon the stones. "God! If they'd suffered alongside me, if they'd been there, if they had given me groan for groan, I could have stood it--enjoyed it--damn them, I could have laughed with the lime in my eyes, if they'd been there--if they'd been there!" He jerked himself to a sitting posture; he writhed backwards and forwards. His spite was a sort of ecstasy, possessing him, freeing him, as it seemed, from even the sense of pain. Aylmer made a significant motion. He bent and slipped his arms beneath Landon's shoulders. The quartermaster lifted his knees. Landon struggled in their arms. "Let me be!" he cried. "Let me stand. Damn you, let me stand upon my own feet!" They hesitated. Then with a shrug the quartermaster laid down his burden. "This is no place for a blind man to pick his way," he remonstrated. "To get down, Monsieur, you have to poise yourself along the wall thirty feet above the square." Landon stood panting and leaning against his cousin. The spasms of agony were convulsing his face. "I will not be carried," he panted. "I'll walk upon my feet--like a man." They looked at each other, hesitating. "But your arms?" protested Aylmer. "Your arms?" The breath hissed between Landon's teeth. "My arms!" he repeated. "God! If I'd my arms! You--you must lead me--carefully--carefully. Put your hand upon my shoulder; keep close--close." For a dozen yards he tottered along, and the sweat broke out astream upon his scars. And then he halted, and stumbled. The quartermaster instinctively put a hand upon one of the broken wrists. Landon shrieked, and cursed him hideously. "Monsieur might have fallen," apologized the man. "My excuses, Monsieur, but it was so quick--so near--the danger. The drop is sheer, do you see, sheer down to the square." Landon gasped. "Which side?" he asked thickly. "Which side?" "The right," said Aylmer. "Lean away from me, inwards, to the left!" Landon drew a deep breath. The next instant he had flung himself against Aylmer's guiding hand, outwards, to the right! For the second time the quartermaster cried aloud and stretched out a hand. But it was not Landon's sleeve which it reached, but Aylmer's--reached and gripped it while the two bodies reeled upon the crumbling edge and sent the flying blocks down to break into powder upon the solid flags below. And then, where two had struggled, one alone remained and clung. Landon had gone. Like the blocks he lay thirty feet below--broken. CHAPTER XXVIII FATE SMILES AT LAST A pall of mist and driving rain closed upon the city as evening fell, as if Nature flung a veil between herself and the handiwork of her passions. Through it the launch of the _Diomède_ threaded the network of the shipping.