14 The Light That Failed and he helped Maisie down the slope of the fort to the sea, — a descent that she was quite capable of covering at full speed. Equally gravely Maisie took the grimy hand. Dick bent forward clumsily; Maisie drew the hand away, and Dick blushed. “It’s very pretty,” he said. “Pooh!” said Maisie, with a little laugh of gratified vanity. She stood close to Dick as he loaded the revolver for the last time and fired over the sea with a vague notion at the back of his head that he was protecting Maisie from all the evils in the world. A puddle far across the mud caught the last rays of the sun and turned into a wrathful red disc. The light held Dick’s attention for a moment, and as he raised his revolver there fell upon him a renewed sense of the miraculous, in that he was standing by Maisie who had promised to care for him for an indefinite length of time till such date as — A gust of the growing wind drove the girl’s long black hair across his face as she stood with her hand on his shoulder calling Amomma “a little beast,” and for a moment he was in the dark, — a darkness that stung. The bullet went singing out to the empty sea. “Spoilt my aim,” said he, shaking his head. “There aren't any more cartridges; we shall have to run home.” But they did not run. They walked very slowly, arm in arm. And it was a matter of indifference to them whether the neglected Amomma with two pin-fire cartridges in his inside blew up or trotted beside them; for they had come into a golden heritage and were disposing of it with all the wisdom of all their years. “And I shall be —” quoth Dick, valiantly. Then he checked himself: “I don’t know what I shall be. I don’t seem to be able to pass any exams, but I can make awful caricatures of the masters. Ho! Ho!” “Be an artist, then,” said Maisie. “You’re always