I
The lock creaked; the door opened.
A face of yellow clay, bandaged about, peered forth.
"That you, Mr. Joy?" came the ghostly voice, terrible in its remoteness.
The Parson dropped his point.
"Knapp?"
The little bandaged figure, in grey shirt and bloody drawers, wrapped about with an old horse-blanket, looked at him with stagnant eyes.
"What's left o me."
There was no gladness in his voice, no light of welcome in his eyes.
The merry little fighter of the morning, then cockiest of men, was now no more than a yellow shadow; dead, you would have said, but for that ghost of a voice, dribbling dreadfully out of his corpse.
The Parson went towards him.
"I never thought to see you alive again, Knapp."
"I'm a little alive," said the man wearily. "They done me—all but."
The Cockney snap was out of his voice. His words came like a drunkard's: he was slurring them, running them together, skipping hard consonants.
"I'll never be a man no more, I won't," he added with a dry sob.
The Parson gripped his hand.
A look of beastly rage darted into the other's eyes.
"Blast ye!" he screamed, and struck at the Parson's face with his elbow.
"I'm one—great wownd, you—." He spewed out a torrent of hideous names.
"And yet you must go for to wring my and!"
He lifted his foot to stamp it. His wounds twitched at him. He lowered it gingerly and with a groan.
"I ain't a man," he sobbed. "I'm one—great wownd."
"My poor chap," choked the Parson.
The other turned, body, legs, neck, and head moving all of a piece, and shuffled into the cottage on his heels.
The Parson followed.
"Don't touch me!" screamed the other, striking back with his elbows.
"Don't come anigh me, my God! or I'll—"
He hobbled in, muffled to the feet in bandages.