"Benlian! Benlian!"
There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back.
"Keep away--keep away--keep away!"
He was struggling--I knew he was struggling as I stood there on my
landing--struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myself
on my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to be
set free ... he was having a terrific struggle, all alone there....
(He told me afterwards that he _had_ to eat something now and then and to
sleep a little, and that weakened him--strengthened him--strengthened
his body and weakened the passing, you know.)
But the next day it was all right again. I was Benlian's again. And I
wondered, when I remembered his struggle, whether a dying man had ever
fought for life as hard as Benlian was fighting to get away from it and
pass himself.
The next time after that that he fetched me--called me--whatever you like
to name it--I burst into his studio like a bullet. He was sunk in a big
chair, gaunt as a mummy now, and all the life in him seemed to burn in
the bottom of his deep eye-sockets. At the sight of him I fiddled with
my knuckles and giggled.
"You _are_ going it, Benlian!" I said.
"Am I not?" he replied, in a voice that was scarcely a breath.
"You _meant_ me to bring the camera and magnesium, didn't you?" (I had
snatched them up when I felt his call, and had brought them.)
"Yes. Go ahead."
So I placed the camera before him, made all ready, and took the magnesium
ribbon in a pair of pincers.
"Are you ready?" I said; and lighted the ribbon.
The studio seemed to leap with the blinding glare. The ribbon spat and
spluttered. I snapped the shutter, and the fumes drifted away and hung
in clouds in the roof.
"You'll have to walk me about soon, Pudgie, and bang me with bladders, as
they do the opium-patients," he said sleepily.
"Let me take one of the statue now," I said eagerly.
But he put up his hand.
"No, no. _That's_ too much like testing our god. Faith's the food they
feed gods on, Pudgie. We'll let the S.P.R. people photograph it when it's
all over," he said. "Now get it developed."