The
nurse went out of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the
winter-black landscape.
'Is there much more water in Denley?' came the faint voice, determined
and querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage
from Willey Water into one of the pits.
'Some more--we shall have to run off the lake,' said Gerald.
'Will you?' The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead
stillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead
than death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would
perish if this went on much longer.
Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father's
eyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling.
Gerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror.
'Wha-a-ah-h-h-' came a horrible choking rattle from his father's
throat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild
fruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the
dark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being.
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