‘Why don’t you go and see what’s the matter, man? Surely, you are no’ frightened?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘but you are.’
And I walked to the door again, flung it open wide, so that the light streamed forth, and as I did so I saw a woman lying huddled up on the mat at the foot of the stairs.
I recognised her at once by the dress, which was a kind of pink silk, with a lot of fluffy lace all round the neck part of it, as Maggie Stiven, and, thinking she had fainted, I rushed forward, lifted her up with ease—for I am a powerful man, and she was a lightly-built little woman—and carried her to a big chair that stood empty near the fire. As I put her in the chair I noticed that her head fell forward on to her bosom with a strange kind of limpness, and her face was of a greenish, chalky kind of hue.
I felt frightened, and called out to the others to rouse up James Macfarlane, who had been studying medicine, but had nearly finished his course, and expected to get his diploma the next session.
Jamie had stowed away too much liquor in his hold in the early part of the evening, and had foundered, so somebody had rolled him up in a rug and put him on a couch, where he had been sleeping for hours. Notwithstanding that fact, it took a long time to waken him.
In the meanwhile I chafed Maggie’s hand, and Rab tried to get brandy down her throat, but it flowed out of her mouth again.
When James Macfarlane realized that something was wrong, he pulled himself together at once, and having felt Maggie’s pulse, he exclaimed with a horrified expression on his face:
‘My God, boys, she’s dead!’
This was only a confirmation of my own fears; nevertheless, the definite assertion by one who was qualified to tell was an awful shock to us.