“Ay, man, that you will! I have seen a worse case mend within a week with the proper treatment. Laura, you look worn—lie down and rest. This is my case. Klaas, bring water and some clean damp moss.”
Klaas quickly returned, and Webster began, with a gentle touch, to moisten the eyelids.
Hume caught him by the wrists.
“Leave me alone—it’s torture.”
“Good—the powder has pierced the lids, and what you feel is the grit on the eyeballs,” and he went on sponging. “The upper part of your face is a colourable imitation of Klaas’s.”
“Jim, don’t be so cruel.”
“Oblige me by going to sleep, young lady. Now for the damp moss,” and, picking out all the coarse stuff, he placed a portion over each eye, and tied the bandage. “Now, take this brandy, and keep quiet.” Then, in singular contradiction to his own words, he burst out: “How the devil did this happen?”
An hour after he sponged the eyes again, and continued at lesser intervals throughout the morning, heedless of his patient’s terrible sufferings.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, as though with a sudden inspiration, “we’ll get back to the river, and drift down to the coast on a raft; the rest will do us all good.”
“Yes,” she said; “let us go quickly; I have lost all desire to see the rock.”