The goods, so needful to the sufferer, were all identified, and extracted at a great cost of patience, and the travellers were escorted, amid incomprehensible Arab clamours, across a place ankle-deep in sand, to a one-storied building of such unburnt bricks as the Israelites might have made, covering a good deal of ground, and combining the caravanserai and the French hotel. A Greek landlord and his French wife came forth, and the one talking all languages, the other only her mother tongue, but both warmly welcoming the arrivals, and assuring them that le pauvre Monsieur had had every care lavished on him—Dr. Chenu was there night and day.
A slender, moustached, brisk young man appeared, asking in French, in a kindly tone, whether they—especially Mademoiselle—could be prepared for so sad a sight as awaited them, but assuring them that the mere fact of life having so long continued had begun to inspire him with a sort of hope.
Mr. Harewood's French was not very available, but Wilmet made reply; and they were admitted into a low empty room, with windows shaded by screens of reed, through which came a dim light, showing a still figure, covered with light linen rags steeped in oil and spirit, which a little square figure in dark blue, with a neat net cap, was changing and renewing as fast as they dried.
All the preparation could not prevent the father from being overwhelmed, and having to turn away to grapple with the shock; but Wilmet, who had all along sustained herself with the recollection of John's reference to her awakening Lance from his deadly lethargy, without pause or shyness bent down, kissed his forehead, and called him by his name; and perhaps the full sense of his entire prostration only broke upon her when there was not the slightest token that she was heard, but the torpor continued unbroken by the faintest movement of the half-closed eyes or lips. Even then she only looked up with a piteous appealing glance to the doctor, who told her that the only chances of consciousness were in the intervals between the passing off of one anodyne and the administration of another, but that hitherto these had been spent in a sort of delirium of anguish, that made the renewal of the opiate immediately necessary.
Hope that at least the familiar voices might penetrate through the cloud still buoyed the new-comers up; but when the moans, restlessness, and half-utterances of dire suffering set in, the eyes opened to dim glassiness, the ears seemed neither to hear nor understand, and there was as much relief as disappointment when the slumberous potion had again brought back the senselessness. Nothing could be done but to moisten the lips and change the rags, and these seemed to dry up on one part as fast as another was renewed. The face had indeed escaped, and so had the back, and for the most part the right side, but the neck, chest, both shoulders, and the whole length of the left side were fearfully scalded, with white sodden-looking spaces, the most fatal appearance of all, worse than even a deep laceration by a splinter above the hip. Day and night Wilmet, the deaconess, and the Hindoo were changing the rags, and fanning, or keeping off the flies; and soon there was a great affection between Sister Hedwige and the young Englishwoman, who shared the same desolate room close adjoining—or rather, lay down there by turns. Wilmet spoke German enough to explain that she was not the patient's sister, but his Verlobte, and that in a matter-of-fact, dreamy kind of way, submitting passively to be kissed and cried over by the puffy little elderly German.
Poor Mr. Harewood could give no active assistance, and was in a sad state of isolation, unable to exchange a sentence with anybody except Wilmet and Krishnu. He tried Latin and French with the doctor; but the diversities of accent foiled him in both, and Wilmet had to be interpreter. He was a great charge to her, but a far greater comfort. There were his constant prayers, and the sight and example of his deep resignation; there was the sense of protection and sympathy, the relief and distraction of attending to him, and of gratitude for his care; and besides, he wrote all the letters, for which Wilmet had neither time nor heart. She could keep up while acting, instead of realizing, as the expression of words must have forced her to do; while the struggle in the father's mind, was only not to long unsubmissively for a conscious interval at the last.
An English army surgeon, who came from Malta a day or two after their arrival, thoroughly approved of M. Chenu's treatment, but agreed in his verdict that any other expectation would be futile; recovery, though not impossible where no vital part was injured, was most improbable where nature had so large a surface to repair.
Yet the actual symptoms that would have been immediate doom did not appear, but as one dim sad day rolled by after another, the parts least hurt began to show a tendency to heal; and therewith sprang up a conviction in Wilmet's mind that there was not always a total insensibility to her presence or Mr. Harewood's, but that the face changed at their voices, and that there was a preference for her hand; and then Dr. Chenu began declaring that these English had 'complexions' like rocks, and that if it were not 'the impossible,' there would be hope; and instead of giving his anodynes with the reckless desire to stifle pain, he become cautious, modified them, and only gave them when decisively expedient.
There resulted a gradual clearing of the senses. There were lulls when pain was comparatively in abeyance, and the faculties less and less clouded, the eyes regained meaning, and smiles of greeting hovered on the lips; a sense of repose in the presence of Wilmet and his father was evident; an uneasy perception if either were absent; and at last an exchange of words—conscious words. When his awakening was marked, not by a groan of pain, but by the feeble inquiry, 'Where's Wilmet?' she felt as if she had had her reward.
Once he asked 'Where's your brother?' and when she explained that none of her brothers were with her, he seemed confused and dissatisfied; but his voice died into an indistinct murmuring; and when twice again the same inquiry recurred, she set it down to the semi-delirious delusions that the narcotics sometimes occasioned. She knew that an English gentleman had done much for him at first, and had only left him the day before her arrival; and she had regretted being unable to discover who he was from lips unused to British nomenclature, but had been too much engrossed to think much about the matter. But there were now intervals in which she fully had her John again, entirely sensible, anxious to preserve his consciousness, so as to be desirous of putting off the sedative as long as he could endure the attacks of suffering without it. He could listen, and sometimes talk; and the next time he returned to the puzzling question, 'When did your brother go?' there could be no doubt that he was in full possession of his understanding; and Wilmet answered, 'Dear John, I do not know what you are thinking of; Felix has never been here at all.'