Darkness and Dawn

"What else was there to do? The last few days I hardly knew anything at all. It was a daze, a dream, a nightmare. There was so much pain in every part that no one part could hurt very much. The bushes pretty nearly stripped every rag of clothes off me--and the skin, as well. My sandals went all to pieces. I lost my sense of direction a hundred times, and must have often doubled on my tracks. I ate and drank what I could get, like an animal. Once, in a period of lucidity, I remember finding a nest of fledgling birds. I crunched them down alive, pin-feathers and all! Well--"

"My boy! My poor, lost, tortured boy!"

"When they wounded me I never even knew. All I know is that the spear wasn't one of the poisoned ones. Otherwise--"

"There, there! Don't think about it any more, darling! Don't tell me any more. I know enough. It's too awful! Let's both try to forget!"

"I guess that's the best way, after all," he answered. "I found the river somehow, after a thousand or two eternities. Instinct must have guided me, for I turned upstream in the right direction. And after that, all I remember is seeing the bridge across to Settlement Cliffs."

"And so you came home to us again, darling?"

"So I came home. Love led me, Beatrice. It was my chart and compass through the wilderness. Not even pain and hunger could confuse them. Nothing but death could ever blot them out!"

"And after all you'd been through, dear, you did what you did for us? Without resting? Without delay or respite?"

"That's life," he answered simply. "That's the price of the new world. He who would build must suffer!"

Her arms embraced him, her breath was warm upon his face, and in the kiss that burned itself upon his eager lips he knew some measure of the sweetness of reward.