CHAPTER XIV.
Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him, Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save, Yet at the last, with his masters around him, He of the Faith spoke as master to slave; Yet at the last, tho' the Kafirs had maimed him, Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,-- Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him, He called upon Allah and died a believer.
-- Kizzilbashi.
'BEG your pardon, Mr.Heldar, but--but isn't nothin' going to happen ?' said Mr.Beeton.
'No!' Dick had just waked to another morning of blank despair and his temper was of the shortest.
''Tain't my regular business, o' course, sir; and what I say is, "Mind your own business and let other people mind theirs;" but just before Mr.
Torpenhow went away he give me to understand, like, that you might be moving into a house of your own, so to speak--a sort of house with rooms upstairs and downstairs where you'd be better attended to, though I try to act just by all our tenants.

Don't I ?' 'Ah! That must have been a mad-house.

I shan't trouble you to take me there yet.

Get me my breakfast, please, and leave me alone.' 'I hope I haven't done anything wrong, sir, but you know I hope that as far as a man can I tries to do the proper thing by all the gentlemen in chambers--and more particular those whose lot is hard--such as you, for instance, Mr.Heldar.You likes soft-roe bloater, don't you?
Soft-roe bloaters is scarcer than hard-roe, but what I says is, "Never mind a little extra trouble so long as you give satisfaction to the tenants."' Mr.Beeton withdrew and left Dick to himself.

Torpenhow had been long away; there was no more rioting in the chambers, and Dick had settled down to his new life, which he was weak enough to consider nothing better than death.
It is hard to live alone in the dark, confusing the day and night; dropping to sleep through sheer weariness at mid-day, and rising restless in the chill of the dawn.