The quarrel ended without blows; and presently they drew aside and talked together in low muttered tones, the purport of which I could not hear. After a time they crossed and looked at me, and the fellow who had been protecting me from Dragen's violence knelt down and tried to feel my pulse. He was clumsy at the business, however, and could not find it. "I believe you've finished him," he muttered and laid me down gently at full length and loosened the cords on both wrists and legs, and began to chafe my limbs to restore circulation.
"That's better," he said at length, feeling again for my pulse and finding it this time. "Get him some brandy or something. But you'd better do what I said, Dragen," he added, rising. "If those papers are in safe hands, as he said, we'd better know what to do next."
The man's evident alarm infected Dragen. "Curse the whole business," he growled uneasily.
"That won't help us far. If you hadn't been in such a devil of a rage, this wouldn't have happened." Then he knelt down by me again. "Can you hear me?" he asked anxiously. "No harm will come to you. Can you hear me?"
My reply was the faintest of faint moans.
"He's coming round all right. Get him some brandy and don't let him see you, and we'll have him round all right," he said in a tone of great relief, as he rose once more. "I'm for fetching him; let's see what the others say," he declared as he picked up the lantern. "We must know what to do next."
There was another conference, and then they went away together, leaving the door unfastened.
In another moment I had slipped my hands out of the cords which had been so considerately loosened and with the knife I cut those which bound my legs. Then I kicked off my boots and stole out of the room in my stockinged feet, resolved to make a fight for my freedom.
The passage outside the room was in darkness; but I knew in which direction I had been carried into the room, and crept noiselessly toward the front door of the house.
But there was a room between, the door of which stood open. I heard the voices of the men there, and one of them was standing close to the door. To pass this meant a great risk of being either seen or heard, and as I hesitated whether to take the chance I caught fragments of the talk.