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Page 46
"Yes, the fool came round to the office door, and--" Gordon stopped with
a miserable sigh which was almost a groan, and dipped the cloth in the
basin.
"How did you get him off?" asked James.
"I had the whip, and Aaron came in just then with that damned mare. She
had balked. I don't think it is the jugular. It can't be. Damn it, how
he bleeds! Run into the office, Elliot, and get the absorbent cotton and
the brandy. I've got to stop this somehow. Oh, my God!"
James suddenly recognized the man on the ground, and gave an exclamation
which Gordon did not seem to notice. "For God's sake, don't let that
dog out!" he cried. "Don't risk the office door. Go around the house,
the front way! Be quick!"
James obeyed. He rushed around the house, and opened the front door.
Immediately Clemency was clinging to him in the dim vestibule. "Mother
is asleep. I think Uncle Tom must have given her some medicine to make
her sleep. Oh, what is the matter? Who is that man out there, and what
ails him, and what ails the dog? I started to go in the office, but he
leapt against the door, so I didn't. I was afraid he might get out and
run upstairs and wake mother. Oh, what is it all about?"
"Nothing for you to worry about, dear," replied James. "Now you must be
a good little girl, and let me go. Your uncle is in a hurry for some
things in the office." He put away her clinging arms gently, and hurried
on toward the office, but the girl followed him. "If I don't stand ready
to shut the door behind you, that dog will be out," she said. All at
once a conviction as to something seized her, and she cried out in
terror and horror, "Oh, I know it is that man out there, and Jack wants
to get at him. I know."
"It is nothing for you to worry about, dear."
"I know. Is he going to die? Is he hurt much?"
"No, your uncle doesn't think so. Don't hinder me, dear."
"No, I won't. I will stand ready and bang the door together after you
before Jack can get out. Oh, it is that man!" Clemency was
half-hysterical, but she stood her ground. When James opened the office
door cautiously and slipped through the opening, she pushed it together
with surprising strength. "Don't get bitten yourself," she called out
anxiously.
For a moment James thought that he might be bitten, for the dog was so
frenzied that he was almost past the point of recognizing his friends.
He made a powerful leap upon James, the crest upon his back as rigid as
steel, but James snatched at his collar, threw him, and spoke, and the
well-trained animal succumbed before his voice. "Charge!" thundered the
young man, and the dog obeyed, although still bristling and growling.
James hurriedly caught up his leash and fastened him to the staple, then
he opened the inner office door, and spoke quickly and reassuringly to
Clemency, who was huddled behind it shaking with fear. "He is all
right. I have fastened him," he said. "Don't worry. Now I must go and
help your uncle."
"He didn't bite you?"
"Oh, no, he knew me the minute I spoke. Sit down here by the fire and
don't be frightened; that's a good little girl."
With that James was out by the other door and in the drive beside
Gordon, who was still assiduously applying water to the red throat of
the prostrate man. "It is beginning to slack up a little," he said
hoarsely. "Here, give me the cotton, and see if you can't get a drop of
brandy between his teeth. They are clinched, but just now he moved a
little. He may be able to swallow. Aaron, put the team into the wagon,
and get a mattress and some blankets from the storeroom. Hurry, he may
come to himself any minute, and he must not stay here any longer than
necessary." Gordon was working fiercely as he spoke, and James took the
cork from the brandy flask, and attempted to force a little between the
man's clinched teeth. Aaron hurried into the stable and lit another
lantern, and went about executing his orders. James, kneeling over the
prostrate man, attempting to minister to him, saw the face fully in the
glare of the lantern. The unconscious face did not look as evil as he
remembered it. He even had a doubt if it were the face of the man who
had that evening stood at his horse's head, and so terrified Clemency.
Then he became convinced that it was the same. There could be no
mistaking the features, which were unusually regular and handsome, but
with a strange peculiarity of lines. It seemed to James that, even while
the man was unconscious, all his features presented slightly upturned
lines as of bitter derision, intersected with downward lines of
melancholy. All these lines were very delicate, but they served to give
expression. He looked like a man who had suffered and made others suffer
for his sufferings, with a cruel enjoyment at the spectacle. It was a
strange face, but not an evil one. However, after James had succeeded in
forcing a few drops of brandy, which were met with convulsive
swallowing, between the man's teeth, he moved again, and his eyes
opened, and immediately the evil shone out of the face like a malignant
flame in a lamp. Knowledge of, and delight in, evil gleamed out of the
sudden brightness of the man's great eyes. Then the evil seemed to leap
to rage, as a spark leaps to flame. He tried to raise himself, and
cursed in a choking voice. He seemed awake most fully to consciousness,
and to know exactly what had happened. The dog in the office sent forth
a perfect volley of barks. The man had been obliged to sink back, but
his right hand fumbled feebly for his pocket.
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