How many weary interminable hours had he endured! But to-night he was too far spent, too far gone for long wakefulness.

He drifted away and sank as if into black oblivion where there sounded the dreadful roll of drums, and images moved under gray clouds, and men were running like phantoms.

He awoke from nightmares, wet with cold sweat, and lay staring again at the blackness, once more alive to recurrent pain.
Pain that was an old, old story, yet ever acute and insistent and merciless.
The night wore on, hour by hour.

The courthouse clock rang out one single deep mellow clang.

One o'clock! Lane thrilled to the sound.