CHAPTER XI.
I was somewhat stunned by my fall, but extricating myself from my entanglements, I rose just in time to see Alice spring from the carriage, followed by Lucy. The latter fell as she alighted from the carriage, but before I could reach her the Don had staggered up to her and lifted her from the ground. He was hardly recognizable. His clothes were soiled and torn, and blood was streaming from two ugly gashes in his face,—one on his forehead and another in his right cheek.
“I trust you are not hurt?” said he.
“Not at all,” answered Lucy, quickly, before she had looked at him, or knew, in fact, who had assisted her to rise. “Oh,” cried she, clasping her hands, when she caught sight of his face, “but you are dreadfully hurt!”
“Oh, no,” replied he, with a ghastly smile; “merely a few scratches.”
“Oh, but you are! Alice! Mr. Whacker! The gentleman—”
But her further utterance was interrupted by the almost hysterical entrance upon the scene of Mrs. Carter, who flew from one girl to the other pale and tremulous, endeavoring to assure herself, by repeated embraces, that they were not dead. In a few moments a miscellaneous crowd had clustered around our party, through which Mary, who had witnessed the accident from her window, rushed to greet her friends. To add to the confusion, little Laura, her nerves unstrung by the scene, was wailing piteously; so that, for a moment, we forgot the Don.
“Look! oh, look!” suddenly cried Lucy, in an excited voice; and seizing me by the arm, she gave me a push. “Quick! quick!” said she, pointing towards our deliverer.
He was leaning heavily against the lamp-post, which, for support, he had clasped with his arms; but, their hold relaxed, they had fallen and hung listlessly by his side. With pallid face, vacant, upturned eyes, and parted lips, he was slowly sinking to the ground.
I sprang forward, but too late to catch him as he fell, or, rather, sank gently to the pavement, his head finding a pillow in the body of the dead horse.
“Who is he, Mary? How was he hurt?” asked Mrs. Carter, eagerly, as she saw Lucy hurrying to his side, and bending over him with an expression of agonized terror in her face.
“It is the Don. He tried to stop the horses, but was knocked down, and then both they and the carriage passed over his body.”
Mrs. Carter was by his side in an instant. His eyes were closed, but opening them slightly, and seeing her sympathizing looks, a faint smile illumined his ashy-pale features.
“Ask some of these people,” whispered Mrs. Carter, “to help you carry him into the house.”
He seemed to hear her, for his eyes opened again and his lips moved, though they gave forth no sound.
“What’s the m-m-m-matter, Jack?”
Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turned and saw my friend Charley.
“What, you in the city! You are just in time. We want to take this gentleman into Mr. Carter’s.”
Charley and I took hold of his head and shoulders, some volunteers his body and limbs, and, lifting him gently, we moved towards the house. Some papers fell out of his breast-pocket as we raised him from the ground, which Charley gathered together and put into his own pocket for the time being.
“Where shall we take him?” I inquired, as we entered the hall.
“Up-stairs, into the front room. Here, this way,” said Mrs. Carter. “Alice,” said she, suddenly stopping midway on the stairs, “send for the doctor, instantly. This way,—gently. Ah, here we are at last! This room. There, lay him on that bed. Thank you, gentlemen. Now, Lucy dear, bring me some water and towels. Thank you. Don’t be so alarmed, child; he will soon revive.” And she gently passed a corner of the moistened towel over his soiled and blood-stained face. At this he opened his eyes for an instant, and looked up into Mrs. Carter’s face with a smile of languid gratitude, and then, closing them again, soon began to breathe heavily.
“He is asleep, girls; you had best leave him now to these gentlemen and myself. The doctor will soon be here, I hope. When did you reach the city, Mr. Frobisher?” asked she, in a sick-room whisper, turning to Charley.
“To-day. On a little b-b-b-business. Who is our friend?” And he nodded towards the bed.
“Oh, I’ll let the girls tell you when you go downstairs. It is rather a long and strange story.”
When the doctor came he found the Don in a heavy sleep and decided to make no examination into his injuries, till he awoke. So he lay, just as he was, in his clothes, till eleven o’clock, at which time he began to exhibit symptoms of returning consciousness; and we sent off for the doctor again.
Mrs. Carter, Charley, and I sat in the room with him, though one or the other of us frequently left his side to convey tidings of his condition to the girls, who were naturally anxious to know how matters were going with him. A little after eleven, after turning uneasily from side to side for some time, he awoke. Mrs. Carter arose softly, and going to the bedside and leaning over him, asked if he wanted anything; and he called for a glass of water. He barely moistened his lips, however, and then, looking from one to another of us in a bewildered way, and scanning the room with feverish eyes, he raised his head from the pillow and asked, with a puzzled look, “Where am I?”
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Carter, gently; “you are among friends.”
“Ah, thanks!” said he; and his head falling back upon the pillow, he was silent for a little while. “I have been hurt somehow, have I not?” he asked, at last.
“Yes, you were hurt trying to save others.”
“Oh, yes! It seems to me that I tried to stop a run-away team, but they knocked me down and went on. Or did not some one else stop them? I remember seeing the ladies leap out and one of them fell, and there was a crowd of people, and some of them lifted me up.”
“Yes, and brought you in here; but you mustn’t talk.”
“Well, I won’t talk any more,” said he, closing his eyes.
“That’s right. Lie quietly where you are, and after a while you will go to bed and have a good night’s rest, and will wake up strong in the morning.”
“Oh, yes,” said he, “I shall be all right in the morning.” But, opening his eyes wide, he began to stare around the room. “Where am I? This is not my room,” said he, with rather a wild look; and he tried to rise on his elbow, but fell back with an expression of pain on his face, closed his eyes, and lay motionless for a little while. Presently he opened them again. “I don’t know this room!” And his eyes ranged up and down and from face to face with a sort of glare. Mrs. Carter gave us an anxious look. She arose, and, drawing her chair alongside the bed, began passing her fingers through his hair. Immediately the wild look passed out of his eyes, and his face was suffused with a smile of infantile sweetness.
“You must keep quiet,” said Mrs. Carter.
“Yes,” said he, simply.
Suddenly he started up with staring eyes, and cried out, “There they come! There they come! Molly! Take Laura! Molly! Quick! Quick! Get out of the way! Ah! I missed ’em!” and he fell back with a groan.
Just then the doctor entered. Mrs. Carter touched her head.
“That’s nothing!” replied the doctor, in a cheery voice. He was a large man, with a large head, covered not so much with auburn hair as with a tawny mane. His face, too, was leonine in its strength, and his step light and springy; and he came into a sick-room with an air which seemed to say that when he entered by the door disease had to fly out by the way of the window, or else he would know the reason why. He walked straight up to the sufferer and placed his hand upon his forehead. The Don gave him a perplexed look, which passed away, however, when the doctor began to feel his pulse. The firm and confident look of the doctor seemed to give the patient control of his faculties.
“Your head aches?”
“Badly.”
“Of course. Any pain elsewhere?”
“Whenever I move there are excruciating pains in my right side.”
“We must look into that. Mrs. Carter, you will please retire. By the way, please send me one of Mr. Carter’s night-shirts. We will now undress you,” said he to the Don, “and see what’s wrong with that right side of yours. Then we shall tuck you away snugly in bed, and you will wake up to-morrow a new man.”
“Thanks,” said the Don, smiling in sympathy with the cheerful tone of his physician.
The examination over, the doctor wrote his prescriptions, and, before taking his leave, suggested that one of us should sit up with the patient, as his flightiness was likely to return during the night, while the other made himself comfortable on a lounge till he was needed as a relief. Giving us his final directions, he left the room; but no sooner had he emerged into the upper hall than he was surrounded by Mrs. Carter and the three girls, Mary having decided to pass the night with her friends.
“Is he badly hurt?”
“Yes, badly.”
“Dangerously?”
“His body is black and blue; there is an ugly lump on the back of his head, and—”
“And what?”
“He has three ribs broken.”
“Oh!” cried the girls in unison.
“Do you think, doctor,” asked Lucy, with trembling lips, “he will—” but she could not speak the word.
“Not a bit of it,” and the doctor snapped his fingers.
“Oh, I am so thankful!”
“Now be off to bed, every one of you!” said the doctor, with a certain jolly imperiousness. “Scamper!” And he shook his tawny mane. “No doubt there are plenty of fellows who would gladly die for you, but I intend to pull this one through. Good-night. Go and dream of the hero. Of course you are all in love with him. Good-night.” And with a courtly bow he took his leave.