"Can you rise?" he asked sharply, "if so get up and come inside. I'll give you something to do you good."
With many groans and asseverations of extreme pain Flip struggled to his feet, and aided by Myles went inside, up the stairs, and was at last safely deposited on the hearthrug in front of the fire, where he lay and groaned with great dramatic effect.
"I'll give you some hot port wine," said Myles, going to the sideboard and taking out a glass and a bottle, "so I'll have to go downstairs and get some hot water--you wait here."
Flip groaned again and gyrated on the floor like a young eel; but when the door had closed behind his benefactor, he sprang to his feet and took a survey of the room.
It was a large and lofty apartment, with a pair of folding doors on one side, which being half open showed Flip that the other room was a bed-room.
There was a sideboard in the sitting-room and near this a writing-table, towards which Flip darted and commenced to turn over the papers rapidly with the idea of finding the dagger hidden underneath.
Nothing however rewarded his efforts, and though he looked into the sideboard, examined the book-case and lifted up the covers of the chairs, he found no sign of the weapon.
"Must be in the bed-room," thought Flip, scratching his head in perplexity and wondering how he could get in, when suddenly it occurred to him that he had not examined the mantel-piece.
There was not a moment to be lost, as Myles might return at any moment, so in a second Flip scrambled up on a chair, and was eagerly looking among the ornaments on the mantel-piece.
There was a mirror framed in tarnished gold, and in front of this a tawdry French clock under a glass shade, two Dresden china figures simpering at one another, and two tall green vases at each end. Flip saw nothing of what he wanted till he peered into one of these vases, when he saw something looking like steel, and drew forth a slender shining blade with no handle.