"It would tire me to death," she said, "no, I must make up my mind to do what my father is urging all the time and marry Desmond. I only wanted to make quite sure that nothing would make you change your mind and purpose before I gave my answer. Good-bye." As Amer watched the vanishing figure of Gabrielle, the great enemy, who has taken captive many a poor soul, sprang upon him and pierced him with poisoned darts. But, looking again and again towards the Radiant City and crying out in his agony and pain to its King, the lad kept his ground. Harder and harder grew the fight, each gripping each with all the strength they possessed, and neither giving way for a moment. But the King was on Amer's side and there were more with him than against him, so though the fight lasted so long that he felt as if he was in a terrible nightmare and would never awake, the enemy, being resisted resolutely, began to lose heart and finally withdrew with many a bad wound. And Amer, the conqueror, fell down faint and almost done to death. But tender hands ministered unto him and sleep overtook him, sleep such as the King gives to His beloved. He awoke at last with some words of the Guide Book ringing in his ears. "'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber. . . . . The Lord is thy Keeper.'" CHAPTER X. THE PASSING OF HEMAN. The next time that Amer came across Heman he was struck by a new expression on his face: there was a brightness that he had not noticed before. "I am drawing near the River," he said in an awed whisper, "but I have the support of my King." "Not yet, Heman, surely not yet," said Amer sorrowfully. "Yes, lad. If I am not mistaken the River is near, and the last conflict with the enemy," he added, slowly, and as they turned together the next corner of the road, there loomed before their eyes a dark valley and at the end of the valley a river. Amer's path lay along the side of the river for a time, but Heman's ended at the brink. The lad trembled as he walked by his side, but was astonished to notice a joy on the face of his companion not at all in keeping with his own feelings; but looking far away beyond the river, he caught sight of a wonderful shining light from the Radiant City, and noticed that his companion's eyes were fixed steadily upon it. Then suddenly without warning, what seemed like a dark cloud, came between Heman and the City. "Ah," he groaned, "it is the enemy; pray for me, for I feel to have no strength for the last conflict. Cry to the King and cry loud for help:" and then Amer saw, as if in a dream, the cloud form itself into an army of dark figures, as if the Devil and his angels were in league to do all in their power to wrest this good soldier from the King, and he remembered the Ambassador's words, "Some are fighting up to the very end."