Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/364

362 where he knelt alone under his sin with that Eye watching.

"I must get help," he said, and stood up. For a minute he stood as if in thought, but he was not thinking. "Certainly I must get help," he said again, and turned down the beach and went back to the camp.

Among the little stones Myers was building a driftwood fire and putting on the kettle to boil. Depache, moving his long limbs slowly, rolled the bedding and strapped it, whistling a little song the while. Within the nearer tent Ducane was cursing. Dick rubbed his eyes, standing still beside the fire. These men did not seem real either. They looked like cut-out paper, pasted against the colourless background of cliffs, and it seemed such a silly thing to speak to paper men.

"Tempest," he said, and stopped, wondering if they could possibly hear him. And then he raised his voice. "The inspector is hurt," he said. "Bring a couple of paddles and a blanket. We must carry him in."

He believed that the men swore in amaze and asked questions. He believed that they hurried him along the beach, dragging the paddles and the scarlet Hudson Bay blanket with them. But he did not talk to them. The voice inside his head continued to repeat, "Have I broken his back? Have I broken his back?" and another voice, the one which he knew for the inevitable cynic devil in his blood, returned, "Well, you tried to. What are you making a fuss about? You tried to."

Between them the three men carried Tempest back to the tent, and rubbed him, and put heated stones to his feet and cloths wrung out of hot water over his heart. It was Depache who commanded here, with his soft eyes gleaming, and Dick who obeyed, enraged at the futile imbecility of it all. Could any reasonable man suppose that hot stones and fomentations were of use when the Power represented by that watching Eye was alone able to control the issue?

"We should ask It," he began to say stupidly, once or twice. "We are no good, you know. We should ask It."

But his words were brushed aside, and he was bidden plunge his hands into the scalding water to wring those hot cloths which could not bring the colour of life back to Tempest's skin. Depache was making little broken