An hour passed slowly while Dane listened to the ticking of his watch; then Maxwell opened his eyes again, and Dane beckoned to Amadu, who stood waiting without. He came in, still wearing the straight blade which had struck the murderer down, and stood like a bronze statue beside his master.
"I want to thank you for faithful service, Amadu," Maxwell said weakly. "You shall have the gun--you have won it--and whatever else you wish besides. We made two great journeys together, but I cannot take you with me now."
The big man bent until Maxwell's thin hand rested on his head. What they said Dane failed to comprehend, but Amadu seemed to do him homage, and when he rose, he moved slowly, with raised palms and head bent, backward out of the tent. Then as Maxwell's eyes closed he crouched in the entrance, with the steel, which caught the lamplight, lying naked across his knee.
"Often I lib for watch them white man so," he said softly. "No djinn or devil go near him now."
Maxwell said little further. He slept or lay unconscious for some time, and then just smiled for a moment as his eyes rested on the grim sentinel with the bronze limbs and raw blue draperies, guarding the entrance. When he next roused himself he laid his chilly hand on one of Dane's, and showed a faint sign of pleasure when his comrade's fingers closed upon it. Once again he murmured, but it was rather by the movements of his lips than by audible sound that Dane gathered the message:
That was his last effort, for when the night was almost gone the fingers which lay limp in Dane's grew rigid. Then Dane stood up stiffly, desolate, knowing that the spirit of Carsluith Maxwell had passed to find such rest as may be reserved for the souls of loyal gentlemen. But the dust claims that which sprang from it quickly in that land, and the comrade he left to mourn over him found his own endurance heavily taxed before the aliens who had helped him at his task took up their stations with weapons girt about them, a barbaric guard of honor, at the dead man's head and feet. It was Amadu who strapped the big revolver by its lanyard to his master's wrist, when, scattering a few of the heavy-scented lily blossoms, Dane folded the tired hands. Then they kept their vigil together, and it did not seem incongruous that dusky cattle thief and soldier of fortune should watch beside the English adventurer. Humanity is greater than color and creed, and it was as those who had suffered together they did their dead due honor.