The two fiddlers were kneeling, with their tears streaming like rain; they were Polacks, and knelt in gratitude for any excitement. The other men were hushed and stern.
On the big table where the arrack punch had been in company with the less heady beer there was a long, writhing hummock, covered with burlap.
No form was discernible, but Emma knew at the first strong heart-beat that it was Jarlsen, singed and crippled with a careless blast, as many another had been.
The women wailed at her, and the men tried to stay her with their rusty hands. Yet she went forward, pity for him drawing her, and did not pause until she looked him in the face.
It was black. The hair was gone; his teeth were fixed in the cracked lower lip, and the eyes, once so wide and bold, were pinkish seams beneath the puffed-out temples.
The women had crowded to her back. Their breathing was heavy and in unison.
Emma leaned over him and said softly, in a mother’s voice, “Do you hear me speak?” She raised his head on her arm, but it settled back on the table with a sharp crack. He had not heard.
She scanned him closely. She had not yet the full sense of this man covered with burlap and disabled; she only knew that it was not death. But now her lower lip jerked down at the corners, though her eyes were dry. The Polack fiddlers drew each a long breath; they saw the crisis of the scene approaching, and were preparing to bellow loudly.
Emma raised her head. “God’s name,” she said, “he’s blasted!”
The women’s faces were curious, inquisitive; and Quarry stood at her side sobbing like a Polack.