A little before ten o'clock Nicky-Nan climbed the stairs painfully to
his bedroom, undressed in part, and lay down--but not to sleep.
For a while he lay without extinguishing the candle--his last candle.
He had measured it carefully, and it reached almost to an inch beyond
the knuckle of his forefinger. It would last him a good two hours at
least, perhaps three.

He lay for a while almost luxuriously, save for the pain in his leg,
and watched the light flickering on the rafters. They had a few more
days to abide, let Pamphlett's men be never so sharp: but this was
his last night under them. His enemies--some of them until this
morning unsuspected--were closing in around him. They had him, now,
in this last corner.

But that was for to-morrow. The very poor live always on the edge of
to-morrow; and for that reason the night's sleep, which parts them
from it, seems a long time.

After all, what could his enemies do to him? If he sat passive, the
onus would rest on them. If Policeman Rat-it-all flung him into the
street, why then in the street he would sit, to the scandal of
Polpier. If, on the other hand, Government claimed him for a
deserter, still Government would have to fetch a cart to convey him
to jail: his leg would not allow him to walk. Of wealth and goods
God Almighty had already eased him. _Cantat vacuus_ . . . He slid a
hand under the bed-clothes and rubbed the swelling on his leg,
softly, wondering if condemned men felt as little perturbed--or some
of them--on the eve of execution.