The boyish voice trailed off into silence as the receiver fell with a
crash to the polished desk, and Billy slipped off the chair and lay in
a huddled heap on the costly rug.
"Oh, mercy!" cried the lady, "Is he drunk or what?"
"Come away Sarah, let Morris deal--"
"But he's sick, I believe, William. Look how white he is. I believe he
is dead! William, he may have come a long way in the heat! He may have
had a sunstroke! Morris, send for a doctor quick! And--call the
ambulance too! You better telephone the hospital. We can't have him
here! William, look here, what's this on his sleeve? Blood? Oh,
William! And we didn't give him any reward--!"
And so, while the days hastened on Billy lay between clean white sheets
on a bed of pain in a private ward of a wonderful Memorial Hospital put
up by the Shaftons in honor of a child that died. Tossing and moaning,
and dreaming of unquenchable fire, always trying to climb out of the
hot crater that held him, and never getting quite to the top, always
knowing there was something he must do, yet never quite finding out
what it was. And back in Sabbath Valley Aunt Saxon prayed and cried and
waited and took heart of cheer from the message the Chief had sent to
Lynn. And quietly the day approached for the trial of Mark Carter, but
his mother did not yet know.