CHAPTER XXV
I came to myself slowly and painfully. I was conscious of an aching head and a shooting pain down my left arm when I tried to move, and everything seemed dream-like and unreal. Nightmare visions floated before me. I felt myself falling—falling again. Once Harry Rayburn’s face seemed to come to me out of the mist. Almost I imagined it real. Then it floated away again, mocking me. Once, I remember, some one put a cup to my lips and I drank. A black face grinned into mine—a devil’s face, I thought it, and screamed out. Then dreams again—long troubled dreams in which I vainly sought Harry Rayburn to warn him—warn him—what of? I did not know myself. But there was some danger—some great danger—and I alone could save him. Then darkness again, merciful darkness, and real sleep.
I woke at last myself again. The long nightmare was over. I remembered perfectly everything that had happened, my hurried flight from the hotel to meet Harry, the man in the shadows and that last terrible moment of falling. . . .
By some miracle or other I had not been killed. I was bruised and aching and very weak, but I was alive. But where was I? Moving my head with difficulty I looked round me. I was in a small room with rough wooden walls. On them were hung skins of animals and various tusks of ivory. I was lying on a kind of rough couch, also covered with skins, and my left arm was bandaged up and felt stiff and uncomfortable. At first I thought I was alone, and then I saw a man’s figure sitting between me and the light, his head turned toward the window. He was so still that he might have been carved out of wood. Something in the close-cropped black head was familiar to me, but I did not dare to let my imagination run astray. Suddenly he turned, and I caught my breath. It was Harry Rayburn. Harry Rayburn in the flesh.
He rose and came over to me.
“Feeling better?” he said a trifle awkwardly.
I could not answer. The tears were running down my face. I was weak still, but I held his hand in both of mine. If only I could die like this, whilst he stood there looking down on me with that new look in his eyes.
“Don’t cry, Anne. Please don’t cry. You’re safe now. No one shall hurt you.”
He went and fetched a cup and brought it to me.
“Drink some of this milk.”