He stopped suddenly:
'You answer nothing?'
In a little, I, with my eyes downcast, said:
'You have so completely taken me by surprise'
'Yes: yes: yes, I know. It was foolish of me. I had intended working up to it slowly: training you into what I wanted you to become.'
He began to drift away:
'Last night I … I had a horrible, a horrible dream.… Strange, strange how we all are troubled by our dreams!… What accursed shadows I saw! shadows of sin; shadows of a tormented universe! Oh my God!… My time is short.… I know it. I shall not get further than Paris. I know it.… "Blake, old fellow: Allan's dead."—"Dead?" he said.—"Yes, dead. Renshaw brought me news of it last night. He carried him on his back over a mile through the sands. It was evening when they got to the water-hole. Allan was delirious. I cannot think of his poor parched lips muttering, and his eyes stared so, Renshaw says. But at the last, he grew quite calm, and asked him to hold him up. Are those the mountains out there?' he asked.—'Yes,' said Renshaw.—'How peaceful they are!' Then he closed his eyes for a little; but opened them all of a sudden and cried out: 'Do you see the Cross there?'—'No,'—said Renshaw. 'Where?'—'Upon the mountain top, the ridge I mean. Christ is holding it. How sweet His face is.… Oh what a light, what a light! It bursts out all round Him. And see. the shadow! There, there on the sand. The shadow of the Cross. Nearer—nearer—nearer, fleet over the golden sand. The shadow of the Cross!'—And so he died."'
I shook him by the arm:
'Sir, sir—You are ill,' I said.
'No,' he said, 'not ill, only tired.'
All at once he started up:
'I've been talking quickly.… My blood's been boiling. But I'm all right now.—You have understood all that I said? No. I see that you don't realise it. Well, well. That is nothing. We'll begin again.—No, I assure you, I'm all right now. Sit down. Draw your chair closer. Now I will go through it again.'
