heart stood still.
"You will be better—"
Against his rough cheek there fell the soft pressure of a woman's lips.
Nathaniel pulled himself erect, every drop of blood in him striving for the mastery of his body, his vision, his strength. He tried to turn, but strong arms seized him from behind. A man's voice spoke to him, a man's strength held him. In an agony of appeal Marion's name burst from his lips.
"Sh-h-!" warned the voice behind him. "Are you crazy?"
The arms relaxed their hold and Nathaniel dragged himself to his knees. The woman was gone. As far as he could see there were people—scores of them, hundreds of them—multiplied into thousands and millions as he looked, until there was only a black cloud about him. He staggered to his feet and a strong hand kept him from falling while his brain slowly cleared. The millions and thousands and hundreds of people dissolved themselves into the day until only a handful was left where he had seen multitudes. He turned his face weakly to the man beside him.
"Where did she go?" he asked.
It was a boyish face into which his pleading eyes gazed, a face white with the strain of battle, reddened a little on one cheek with a smear of blood, and there was a startled, frightened look in it that did not come of the strife that had passed.
"Who? What are you talking about?"
"The woman," whispered Nathaniel. "The woman—Marion—who kissed—me—"
The young fellow's hand gripped his arm in a sudden fierce clutch.
"You've been dreaming!" he exclaimed in a threatening voice. "Shut up!" He spoke the words loudly. Then quickly dropping his voice to a whisper he added, "For God's sake don't betray her! They saw her with us—everybody knows that it was the king's wife with you!"
The king's wife! Nathaniel was too weak to analyze the words beyond the fact that they carried the dread truth of his fears deep into his soul. Who would have come to him but Marion? Who else would have kissed him? It was her voice that had whispered in his ear—the thrill of her hand that had passed over his face. And this man had said that she was the wife of the king! He heard the voices of other men near him but did not understand what they were saying. He knew that after a moment there was a man on each side of him holding him by the arms, and mechanically he moved his legs, knowing that they wanted him to walk. They did not guess how weak he was—how he struggled to keep from becoming too great a weight on their hands. Once or twice they stopped in their agonizing climb up the hill. On its top the cool sea air swept into Nathaniel's face and it was like water to a parched throat.
After a time—it seemed a day of terrible work and pain to him—they came to the streets of the town, and in a half conscious sort of way he cursed at the rabble trailing at their heels. They passed close to the temple, dirt and blood and a burning torment shutting the vision of it from his eyes, and beyond this there was another crowd. An aisle opened for them, as it had opened for others ahead of them. In front of the jail they stopped. Nathaniel's head hung heavily upon his breast and he made no effort to raise it. All ambition and desire had left him, all desire but one, and that was to drop upon the ground and lie there for endless, restful years. What consciousness was left in him was ebbing swiftly; he saw black, fathomless night about him and the earth seemed slipping from under his feet.
A voice dragged him back into life—a voice that boomed in his ears like rolling thunder and set every fiber in him quivering with emotion. He drew himself erect with the involuntary strength of one mastering the last spasm of death and as they dragged him through the door he saw there within an arm's reach of him the great, living face of Strang, gloating at him as if from out of a mist—red eyed, white fanged, filled with the vengefulness of a beast.
The great voice rumbled in his ears again.
"Take that man to the dungeon!"
CHAPTER X
WINNSOME'S VERDICT OF DEATH
The voice—the condemning words—followed Nathaniel as he staggered on between his two guards; it haunted him still as the cold chill of the rotting dungeon walls struck in his face; it remained with him as he stood swaying alone in the thick gloom—the voice rumbling in his ears, the words beating against his brain until the shock of them sickened him, until he stretched out his arms and there fell from him such a cry as had never tortured his lips before.
Strang was alive! He had left the spark of life in him, and the woman who loved him had fanned it back into full flame.
Strang was alive! And Marion—Marion was his wife!
The voice of the king taunted him from the black chaos that hid the dungeon walls. The words struck at him, filling his head with shooting pain, and he tottered back and sank to the ground to get away from them. They followed, and that vengeful leer of the king was behind them, urging them on, until they beat his face into the sticky earth, and smothered him into what he thought was death.
There came rest after that, a long silent rest. When Nathaniel slowly climbed up out of the ebon shadows again the first consciousness that came to him was that the word-demons had stopped their beating against his brain and that he no longer heard the voice of the king. His relief was so great that he breathed a restful sigh. Something touched him then. Great God! were they coming back? Were they still there—waiting—waiting—
It was a wonderfully familiar voice that spoke to him.
"Hello there, Nat! Want a drink?"
He gulped eagerly at the cool liquid that touched his lips.
"Neil," he whispered.
"It's me, Nat. They chucked me in with you. Hell's hole, isn't it?"
Nathaniel sat up, Neil's strong arm at his back. There was a light in the room now and he could see his companion's face, smiling at him encouragingly. The sight of it was like an elixir to him. He drank again and new life coursed through him.
"Yes—hell of a hole!" he repeated drowsily. "Sorry for you—Neil—" and he seemed to sleep again.
Neil laughed as he wiped his companion's face with a wet cloth.
"I'm used to it, Nat. Been here before," he said. "Can you get up? There's a bench over here—not long enough to stretch you out on or I would have made you a bed of it, but it's better than this mud to sit on."
He put his arms about Nathaniel and helped him to his feet. For a few moments the wounded man stood without moving.
"I'm not very bad, I guess," he said, taking a slow step. "Where is the seat, Neil? I'm going to walk to it. What sort of a bump have I got on the head?"
"Nothing much," assured Neil. "Suspicious, though," he grinned cheerfully. "Looks as though you were running and somebody came up and tapped you from behind!"
Nathaniel's strength returned to him quickly. The pain had gone from his head and his eyes no longer hurt him. In the dim candle-light he could distinguish the four walls of the dungeon, glistening with the water and mold that reeked from between their rotting logs. The floor was of wet, sticky earth which clung to his boots, and the air that he breathed
