Our lives may end any minute.

Humanly speaking, they must end before the sun is up." The words were awful enough--if the reader can by an effort of imagination throw himself for a moment into the position of these two, he will understand how awful.
It is a dreadful thing, when in the flow of health and youth, suddenly to be placed face to face with the certainty of violent death, and to know that in a few more minutes your course will have been run, and that you will have commenced to explore a future, which may prove to be even worse, because more enduring, than the life you are now quitting in agony.

It is a dreadful thing, as any who have ever stood in such a peril can testify, and John felt his heart sink within him at the thought of it--for Death is very strong.

But there is one thing stronger, a woman's perfect love, against which Death himself cannot prevail.

And so it came to pass that now as he fixed his cold gaze upon Jess's eyes they answered him with a strange unearthly light.