I bent my head down, and he tried to lift his hand to my shoulder. I raised him a little on his pillows, and listened. “It seems to me, George, always—there must be something in me—that won’t die.” He looked at me as though the decision rested with me. “I think,” he said; “—something.” Then, for a moment, his mind wandered. “Just a little link,” he whispered almost pleadingly, and lay quite still, but presently he was uneasy again. “Some other world” “Perhaps,” I said. “Who knows?” “Some other world.” “Not the same scope for enterprise,” I said. “No.” He became silent. I sat leaning down to him, and following out my own thoughts, and presently the _religieuse_ resumed her periodic conflict with the window fastening. For a time he struggled for breath.... It seemed such nonsense that he should have to suffer so—poor silly little man! “George,” he whispered, and his weak little hand came out. “_Perhaps_—” He said no more, but I perceived from the expression of his eyes that he thought the question had been put. “Yes, I think so;” I said stoutly. “Aren’t you sure?” “Oh—practically sure,” said I, and I think he tried to squeeze my hand. And there I sat, holding his hand tight, and trying to think what seeds of immortality could be found in all his being, what sort of ghost there was in _him_ to wander out into the bleak immensities. Queer fancies came to me.... He lay still for a long time, save for a brief struggle or so for breath and ever and again I wiped his mouth and lips. I fell into a pit of thought. I did not remark at first the change that was creeping over his face. He lay back on his pillow, made a faint zzzing sound that ceased, and presently and quite quietly he died—greatly comforted by my assurance. I do not know when he died. His hand relaxed insensibly. Suddenly, with a start, with a shock, I found that his mouth had fallen open, and that he was dead.... VIII It was dark night when I left his deathbed and went back to my own inn down the straggling street of Luzon. That return to my inn sticks in my memory also as a thing apart, as an experience apart. Within was a subdued bustle of women, a flitting of lights, and the doing of petty offices to that queer, exhausted thing that had once been my active and urgent little uncle. For me those offices were irksome and impertinent. I slammed the door, and went out into the warm, foggy drizzle of the village street lit by blurred specks of light in great voids of darkness, and never a soul abroad. That warm veil of fog produced an effect of vast seclusion. The very houses by the roadside peered through it as if from another world. The stillness of the night was marked by an occasional remote baying of dogs; all these people kept dogs because of the near neighbourhood of the frontier. Death!