Elliott said nothing. He looked at the dead man, at the crimson stain that was spreading over the whole coat-front, and tried to avoid thinking of Margaret. How could he tell her? Of what could he tell her—for he would have to tell her something.
Sevier poured out half a glass of whiskey and drank it neat. He stood apparently pondering for a few minutes, while all three men stood gazing with strange fascination at the corpse, which regarded the ceiling imperturbably.
“You look sick, Elliott. Take some whiskey,” he suddenly remarked. “Wait, I’ll get another glass.”
He went into the adjoining room for it, and Elliott swallowed the liquor without seeing it, almost without tasting it. He had hardly drunk it when he felt a violent sickness, and sat down. The room seemed to swim and grow faint before his eyes.
“She mustn’t know,” he heard himself murmuring. “I can’t tell her.”
A numb paralysis was creeping over him. He dropped his head on the table beside the battery, and gold, love, and murder faded into blackness.
Years of oblivion seemed to pass over his head. He awoke at intervals to a sense of violent struggles, nightmares of blood and death, and a pervading, terrible nausea. Then new cycles of darkness swept down, interrupted by new dreams of agony.
He came to himself slowly, aching and sick. He was in bed, and he was being rocked gently to and fro. The room was small, with the ceiling close above his head. Light came in through a small round window, and a perpetual vibration jarred the whole place.
As his head slowly cleared, he comprehended that he must be in the stateroom of a steamer, and he imagined indistinctly that he was at sea, and on his way to Hongkong in pursuit of the mate. But there was a dull sense of catastrophe at the back of his head, and all at once he remembered. He had been at Hongkong; he had found Margaret—and the missionary, and the whole tragedy came back to him. What had happened after that? He could remember nothing, and he threw himself out of the lower berth in which he was reposing, and looked through the port light. There was nothing but ocean to be seen.
His hand went instinctively to his waist. Thank heaven! his money-belt was still there, buckled next his body, and he could feel the hard, round sovereigns through the buckskin. His clothes lay on the sofa. He hurried into them, omitting the collar, tie, and shoes, and rushed from the room, with his hair wildly dishevelled.