234 The Light That Failed shaking hand then. If you touch it, it will go off, because it’s loaded. It’s among my campaign-kit somewhere — in the parcel at the bottom of the trunk.” Long ago Dick had carefully possessed himself of a forty-pound weight field-equipment constructed by the knowledge of his own experience. It was this putaway treasure that he was trying to find and rehandle. Mr. Beeton whipped the revolver out of its place on the top of the package, and Dick drove his hand among the khaki coat and breeches, the blue cloth leg-bands, and the heavy flannel shirts doubled over a pair of swan-neck spurs. Under these and the water-bottle lay a sketch-book and a pigskin case of stationery. “These we don’t want; you can have them, Mr. Beeton. Everything else Pll keep. Pack *em on the top right-hand side of my trunk. When you’ve done that come into the studio with your wife. I want you both. Wait a minute; get me a pen and a sheet of notepaper.” It is not an easy thing to write when you cannot see, and Dick had particular reasons for wishing that his work should be clear. So he began, following his right hand with his left: ““The badness of this writing 1s because I am blind and cannot see my pen.’ H’mph! — even a lawyer can’t mistake that. It must be signed, I suppose, but it needn’t be witnessed. Now an inch lower — why did I never learn to use a type-writer? — “This is the last will and testament of me, Richard Heldar. I am in sound bodily and mental health, and there is no previous will to revoke.’ — That’s all right. Damn the pen! Whereabouts on the paper was I? — ‘J leave everything that I possess in the world, including four thousand pounds, and two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight pounds held for me’ — oh, I can’t get this straight.” He tore off half the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting. Then: “I leave all the money I possess in the world to”