Then the faces grew blurred and swayed in circles round the wounded man, and again his senses left him.
CHAPTER XXV
IN THE DEATH CHAMBER
A dark, silent chamber. A room magnificent and lofty in which the far corners were shrouded in shadowy gloom.
Edward lay in a half consciousness, staring up at the ceiling. It caused him no wonderment that the ceiling was strange to him, and unlike any ceiling he had ever known, or that it should be carved and painted and rich with gilding.
There was a faint, elusive perfume in the air that set him thinking of cathedrals, and from somewhere near him there came a droning monotone.
He felt no definite pain now, only a sensation of lassitude and detachment. There was a strange tightness in the region of his heart and he felt a little cold. Turning his head he tried to rise upon his elbow, but a sharp pain took him in the shoulder as he moved, and he was glad to sink back again upon the pillow.
The movement, however, slight as it had been, had left him in a position from which he could get a better view of his surroundings, and as he took these in he gave a little gasp and felt the beads of moisture pricking out upon his forehead.
In the centre of the room there was a bed, the four posts of which, richly carved, upheld a fluted canopy of dull red silk from which depended heavy curtains looped up with tasselled cords. Upon the panel above the pillow an escutcheon was blazoned out in dull gold.