Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/131

Rh The trouble revealed by the surgeon proved to be cancer, and when, some few days after the operation, the weary man was told the nature of his malady he said, with a smile, he would take no more trouble to live. In fourteen days he died.

Every day his bed was brought close to the window so that the sun could fall upon him, so that his eyes could rest upon the stretch of water and the sound of waves could fall upon his tired ears.

The friend of his boyhood, the clerk, came down from London to see him. They had very little to say to one another when they met. After the simplest greeting was over the sick man turned his face towards the sea and for long he and his old companion gazed at the blue Channel in silence. There was no need for speech. It was the sea that spoke for them. It was evident that they were both back again at Salcombe, at some beloved creek, and that they were boys once more playing by the sea. The sick man's hand moved across the coverlet to search for the hand of his friend, and when the fingers met they closed in a grip of gratitude for the most gracious memory of their lives.

The failing man's last sight of the sea was