The heavy mug did not hit citizen Chauvelin; it went crashing against the stone wall opposite. But the water was trickling from the top of his head all down his eyes and cheeks. He shrugged his shoulders with a look of benign indulgence directed at his enemy, who had fallen back into his chair exhausted with the effort.
Then he took out his handkerchief and calmly wiped the water from his face.
“Not quite so straight a shot as you used to be, Sir Percy,” he said mockingly.
“No, sir—apparently—not.”
The words came out in gasps. He was like a man only partly conscious. The lips were parted, the eyes closed, the head leaning against the high back of the chair. For the space of one second Chauvelin feared that his zeal had outrun his prudence, that he had dealt a death-blow to a man in the last stage of exhaustion, where he had only wished to fan the flickering flame of life. Hastily—for the seconds seemed precious—he ran to the opening that led into the guard-room.
“Brandy—quick!” he cried.
Heron looked up, roused from the semi-somnolence in which he had lain for the past half-hour. He disentangled his long limbs from out the guard-room chair.
“Eh?” he queried. “What is it?”
“Brandy,” reiterated Chauvelin impatiently; “the prisoner has fainted.”
“Bah!” retorted the other with a callous shrug of the shoulders, “you are not going to revive him with brandy, I imagine.”