CHAPTER XXIX. THE ISLAND AT LAST. After his father left him, Lance slept, the sleep of a condemned and shriven man, long and deep and dreamless, the first sound rest his tortured nerves and flagging powers had known since the night in Hepzibah. Kimbro Cleaverage--following Sylvane's directions--had come without difficulty to his son's cave hide-out, arriving at about eleven o'clock. He found Lance sitting wakeful by the fire, the gay folds of the gospel quilt over his knees, played upon by the shimmer and shine of the leaping blaze. The young man's fever-bright gaze was directed with absorbed attention toward his work. He was delicately snipping loose ends with the shears, while a threaded needle was stuck in the lapel of his coat. He had taken the scarlet calico and cut from it a series of tiny Greek crosses, beautifully exact and deftly grouped and related so as to form a border around the entire square. With that sense of decorative effect which was denied his sister, he had set these so that the interplay of red and white pleased the eye, and almost redeemed the archaic absurdities of the quilt itself. Skilled with the needle as a woman, he had [378] basted the last cross in place when his father entered. The talk which followed, there in that subterranean atmosphere that is neither out-nor in-door, neither dark nor light, was long and earnest. Kimbro spoke freely, and there was always that in his father which took Lance by the throat. Perhaps it was the entire lack of accusation; perhaps something in the old man's personality that appealed with its tale of struggle and failure, its frank revelation of patiently borne defeat. "I'll go right back with you, Pappy, if you say so," Lance murmured huskily at the last, looking up into the gray old face above him like the child he had used to be. "As well now as any time." "No, son," said Kimbro slowly. His heart ached with the cry, "The Lord knows there ain't no such hurry--there'll be time enough afterward!" But his habit of gentle stoicism prevailed, and he only paused a little, then added, "I reckon we better not do that--I reckon we couldn't very well. I rode the black nag pretty hard coming up. The going's heavy. He couldn't carry us both back, not in any sort of time; and nary one of us is fit to make it afoot. No, I'll take the word to Beason, and him and his men will likely stay at our house till in the morning--poor Roxy! Sylvane'll ride the mule up here tol'able early, and lead your horse. You go straight home. [379] Beason and his men can come for you to your house. Will that suit?" "Hit'll suit" Lance answered. There was along silence between the two. Then the old man moved to the cave's mouth. "Farewell," he said, and stood hesitating, his back to his son. Lance followed his father a few halting paces, carrying a chunk of fire, lighting the old man down the bank. "Farewell, Pappy," he echoed.