“I don’t want any fire or any milk.  I only wanted to know if you were there,” he said diffidently, as if ashamed of his childishness.

She leaned over him, speaking gently and touching his head softly with her firm, cool hands.

“You’re a little better now, aren’t you, after your sleep?  Don’t you feel a little stronger?”

“Yes, I’m better, lots better,” he whispered.  “I must have been sleeping for ages.  When I woke up I thought I had a beastly chill or something; but I’m all right now; only suddenly I felt as if I must know if you were there, and if it was you.”

He smiled at his own words, and Agatha was reassured.

“I think you’ll be still better for a little milk,” she said, and crept away to get the pail, which had been hidden on a shelf of rock.  When she came back with it, James tried manfully to sit up; but Agatha slipped an arm under his neck, in skilful nurse fashion, and held the bucket while he drank, almost greedily.  As he sank back on his bed he whispered:  “You are very good to take care of me.”

“Oh, no; I’m only too glad!  And now I’m going to build up the fire again; your hands are quite cold.”

“No, don’t go,” he pleaded.  “Please stay here; I’m not cold any more.  And you must go to sleep again.  I ought not to have wakened you; and, really, I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes, you ought.  I’ve had lots of sleep; I don’t want any more.”

“It’s dark, but it’s better than it was that other night, isn’t it?” said James.

“Much better,” answered Agatha.

James visibly gathered strength from the milk, and presently he took some more.  Agatha watched, and when he had finished, patted him approvingly on the hand, “Good boy!  You’ve done very well,” she cried.

“I was so thirsty, I thought the whole earth had run dry.  Will you think me very ungrateful if I say now I wish it had been water?”

“Oh, no; I wish so, too.  But Mr. Hand could only get us a little bit from a spring, for there isn’t any other pail.”

It was some time before Jim made out to inquire, “Who’s Mr. Hand?”

“He’s the man that helped us—­out of the water—­when we became exhausted.”

Agatha hesitated to speak of the night’s experience, uncertain how far Jim’s memory carried him, and not knowing how a sick man, in his weakness, might be affected.  Still, now that he seemed almost himself again, save for the chill, she ventured to refer to the event, speaking in a matter-of-fact way, as if such endurance tests were the most natural events in the world.  James’ speech was quite coherent and distinct, but very slow, as if the effort to speak came from the depths of a profound fatigue.

“Hand—­that’s a good name for him.  I thought it was the hand of God, which plucked me, like David, or Jonah, or some such person, out of the seething billows.  But I didn’t think of there being a man behind.”  Then, after a long silence, “Where is he?”