The Colossus | Page 9

DeGolyer asked; "Don't you feel a good
deal better?"
"No."
"But your mind is clear?"
"Yes."
"Shall I put another cold cloth on your head?"
"If you please."
And when DeGolyer had gently done this, Witherspoon said: "Sit down
here, Hank."
"All right, my boy, here I am."
"Hank, I'm not going to get well."
"Oh, yes, you are, and don't you let any such nonsense enter your
head."
"It's a good ways from nonsense, I tell you. I know what I'm talking
about; I know just as well as can be that I'm going to die--now you wait
till I get through. It can't be helped, and there's no use in taking on over
it. I did want to see my father and mother and sister, but it can't be
helped."
DeGolyer was on his knees beside the bed. He attempted to speak, but
his utterance was choked; and the tears in his eyes blurred to spectral
dimness the only human being whom he held warm in his heart.
"Hank, while I am able to talk I've got a great favor to ask of you. And

you'll grant it, won't you?"
"Yes," DeGolyer Bobbed.
For a few moments the sick man lay in silence. He fumbled about and
found DeGolyer's hand. "My father and mother are waiting for me," he
said. "They have been raised into a new life. If I never come it will be
worse than if I had never been found, for they'll have a new grief to
bear, and it may be heavier than the first. They must have a son, Hank."
"My dear boy, what do you mean?"
"I mean that if I die--and I know that I am going to die--you must be
their son. You must go there, not as Henry DeGolyer, but as Henry
Witherspoon, their own son."
"Merciful God! I can't do that."
"But if you care for me you will. Take all my papers--take everything
I've got--and go home. It will be the greatest favor you could do me and
the greatest you could do them."
"But, my dear boy, I should be a liar and a hypocrite."
"No, you would be playing my part because I couldn't play it. Once you
said that you would give me your life if I wanted it, and now I want it.
You can make them happy, and they'll be so proud of you. Won't you
try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me
this--and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part
of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more
of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank--I'm a man now.
Will you?"
"Henry," said DeGolyer, "this is merely a feverish notion that has come
out of your derangement. Put it by, and after a while we will laugh at it.
Is the cloth hot again?"
"Yes."
"I'll change it." And DeGolyer, removing the cloth and placing his hand
on his friend's forehead, added: "Your fever isn't so high as it was
yesterday. You are coming out all right."
"No, I tell you that I'm going to die; and you won't do me the only favor
I could ask. Don't you remember saying, not long ago, that a man's life
is a pretense almost from the beginning to the end?"
"I don't remember saying it, but it agrees with what I have often been
compelled to think."
"Well, then, if you think that life is a pretense, why not pretend by

request?"
"Well talk about it some other time, my boy."
"But there may not be any other time."
"Oh, yes, there will be. Don't you think you can sleep now?"
"No, I don't think I can sleep and wake up again."
But he did sleep, and he did awake again. Three more days passed
wearily away, and the patient was delirious most of the time.
DeGolyer's acquaintance with Spanish was but small, and he could
comprehend but little of what a pedantic doctor might say, yet he
learned that there was not much encouragement to be drawn from the
fact that the sick man's mind sometimes returned from its troubled
wandering.
DeGolyer was again alone with his friend. It was a hot though a
blustery afternoon, and the sea, in sight through the open door, sounded
the deeper notes of its endless opera.
"Hank."
"I'm here, my boy."
"Have you thought about what I told you to do?"
"Are you still clinging to that notion?"
"No; it is clinging to me. Have you thought about it?"
"Yes."
"And what did you think?"
"I thought that for you I would take the risk of playing a part that you
are