Ben Yolland saw, standing in
the room, a great rough wooden cross which Harold had made for some
decorating plan of mine. He held it over him, put it into his hand,
and bade him repeat after him, "Christ has conquered. By Thy Cross
and Passion; by Thy precious Death and Burial, good Lord deliver us."
So it went on hour after hour, evening closing into night, the long,
long night brightening at last into day, and still the fever raged,
and the fits of delirious agony came on, as though every fiend that
had ever tempted him were assailing him now. Yet still he had the
power to grasp the Cross when it was held to him, and speak the
words, "Christ has conquered," and his ears were open to the prayer,
"By Thy Cross and Passion, by Thine Agony and Bloody Sweat, good Lord
deliver us!"--the prayer that Ben prayed like Moses at Rephidim.
Time came and went, the Northchester physician came and said he might
be saved, if the eruption could only be brought out, but he feared
that it had been thrown inwards, so that nothing would avail; but of
all this Harold knew nothing, he was only in that seething brain,
whose former injury now added to the danger, living over again all
his former life, as those who knew it could trace in the choked and
broken words. Yet, as the doctors averred, that the conscience and
the will should not be mastered by the delirium was most unusual, and
proved the extraordinary force of his character and resolution, even
though the conflict was evidently a great addition to his sufferings.
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