was as white as any face he had ever seen, living or dead; her
eyes were like pools that had caught the reflection of fire; he
saw the sheen of her hair, the poise of her slender body--its
shock, stupefaction, horror. He sensed these things even as his
brain wobbled dizzily, and the larger part of the picture began to
fade out of his vision. But her face remained to the last. It grew
clearer, like a cameo framed in an iris--a beautiful, staring,
horrified face with shimmering tresses of jet-black hair blowing
about it like a veil. He noticed the hair, that was partly undone
as if she had been in a struggle of some sort, or had been running
fast against the breeze that came up the river.

He fought with himself to hold that picture of her, to utter some
word, make some movement. But the power to see and to live died
out of him. He sank back with a queer sound in his throat. He did
not hear the answering cry from the girl as she flung herself,
with a quick little prayer for help, on her knees in the soft,
white sand beside him. He felt no movement when she raised his
head in her arm and with her bare hand brushed back his sand-
littered hair, revealing where the bullet had struck him. He did
not know when she ran back to the river.

His first sensation was of a cool and comforting something
trickling over his burning temples and his face. It was water.
Subconsciously he knew that, and in the same way he began to
think. But it was hard to pull his thoughts together. They
persisted in hopping about, like a lot of sand-fleas in a dance,
and just as he got hold of one and reached for another, the first
would slip away from him. He began to get the best of them after a
time, and he had an uncontrollable desire to say something. But