Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/218

206 Chester looked down at the man and then at his sister.

"Are you scared—I mean are you really very much afraid that he might go?" he asked gently.

Joan did not answer in words, for words would not come to her just then. She shook her head, as though determined to oppose the very idea of Keith dying, but tears welled into her eyes.

Then Chester understood.

"He will take an awful lot of killing," he said, reassuringly. "A man with his constitution can look over the very brink and come back a dozen times. I wish now that I knew more about such things, but, honestly, sis, I believe you're more alarmed than is necessary."

Chester was not saying what he believed, but what he thought would comfort the girl.

Suddenly Keith, who had not spoken for hours, made a weak attempt to rise on to his elbow and fixed his burning eyes on an imaginary person in the room.

"Listen here," he said in hollow tones, moistening his parched lips with his tongue, "I tell you you're dead, Murdock. Can't you let a man alone for a while?"

Then he paused, as though listening to some reply.

"You belong in hell," he went on a few moments later. "Go back home, where I sent you. What's