For a moment in that flicker of fire he seemed to grow larger. Alone, unassailable, erect among those heaps of dead and dying enemies, his stature seemed as it were suddenly to increase. He towered above them, his head in swirls of smoke, the great bare shoulders gleaming with his blood, the long braids of yellow hair soaked with it. Awful, gigantic, suddenly a demi-god, he stood colossal, a man made more than human. The eyes of him fixed, wide open, looked out into the darkness above their heads, unwinking, unafraid—looked into the darkness and into the eyes of Death, unafraid, unshaken. There he stood already dead, yet still upon his feet, rigid as iron, his back unbent, his neck proud; while they cowered before him holding their breaths waiting, watching. Then, like a mighty pine tree, stiff, unbending, he swayed slowly forward. Stiff as a sword-blade the great body leaned over farther and farther; slowly at first, then with increased momentum inclined swiftly earthward. He fell, and they could believe that the crash of that fall shook the earth beneath their feet. He died as he would have wished to die, in battle, his harness on, his sword in his grip. He lay face downward amid the dead ashes of the trampled fire and moved no more. _*The Guest of Honour*_ *PART ONE* The doctor shut and locked his desk drawer upon his memorandum book with his right hand, and extended the left to his friend Manning Verrill, with the remark: "Well, Manning, how are you?" "If I were well, Henry," answered Verrill gravely, "I would not be here." The doctor leaned back in his deep leather chair, and having carefully adjusted his glasses, tilted back his head, and looked at Verrill from beneath them. He waited for him to continue. "It’s my nerves—I _suppose_," began Verrill. "Henry," he declared suddenly leaning forward, "Henry, I’m scared; that’s what’s the matter with me—I’m scared." "Scared," echoed the doctor, "What nonsense! What of?" "Scared of death, Henry," broke out Verrill, "scared _blue_!" "It is your nerves," murmured the doctor. "You need travel and a bromide, my boy. There’s nothing the matter with you. Why, you’re good for another forty years,—yes, or even for another fifty years. You’re sound as a nut. You, to talk about death!" "I’ve seen thirty—twenty-nine I should say, twenty-nine of my best friends go." The doctor looked puzzled a moment; then—"Oh! you mean that club of yours," said he.