With a sort of fascination I watched the finely-pointed steel nib; it trembled for an instant or two, then the pen dropped from the convulsed fingers, and with a cry of intolerable anguish the Major fell back.
For some minutes there was a painful struggle; presently we caught a word or two between the groans of the dying man.
"Too late!" he gasped, "too late!" And then a dreadful vision of horrors seemed to rise before him, and with a terror that I can never forget he turned to his son and clutched fast hold of his hands: "Derrick!" he shrieked.
Derrick could not speak, but he bent low over the bed as though to screen the dying eyes from those horrible visions, and with an odd sort of thrill I saw him embrace his father.
When he raised his head the terror had died out of the Major's face; all was over..