It was Nature who answered in her grand, wise way, and it was as if she said:
“There is only one thing you can do, my poor, heartsore, weary one: sleep. Rest, and gain strength for the fight to come.”
And in the silence and gathering darkness a calm, sweet insensibility to all his troubles stole over Dyke; he sank lower and lower till his head rested against the skins, and the coarse, sack-like pillow, formed of rough, unsaleable ostrich-feathers; and it was not until twelve hours after that he moved, or felt that there was a world in which he occupied a place, with stern work cut out for him to achieve.
It was the touch of something cold upon his cheek that roused the sleeper, and that something cold was the dog’s nose.
Dyke did not start; he merely opened his eyes quietly, and looked up at those gazing at him, and, thoroughly comforted and rested, he smiled in the dog’s face.
“Get out, you old rascal,” he said. “You know you’ve no business to do that.”
Duke uttered a satisfied bark, and then began to caper about the room to show his delight at the solemn silence of the place being broken; but stopped directly, and made for the door in alarm, so sudden was the spring his master made to his feet—so wild and angry the cry the boy uttered as he bent over the bed.
For full consciousness had returned like a flash, and as he cried, “I’ve been asleep! I’ve been asleep!” he gazed down at his brother, horrified at the thought of what might have happened, and full of self-reproach for what he felt to have been his cruel neglect.
But Emson was just as he had seen him last—even his hands were exactly as they had lain in the darkness the previous night—and when Dyke placed his hand upon the poor fellow’s head, it felt fairly cool and moist.
Dyke’s spirits rose a little at this, but his self-reproach was as great as ever.