“That I don’t!” replied the lad bluffly. “Because I do like you, and I’m glad you’ve come. I say, can you shake hands?”
“Like the English?” said Denis. “Of course.”
“Oh, I did not mean that,” said the other. “Of course I know that you fellows embrace; but I meant about your arm. Can you shake hands without its hurting? Because we always do it with our right.”
“Try,” said Denis, smiling, as, passing his left hand under his wrist, he softly raised the injured limb, and the next moment the two lads seemed to seal the beginning of a long friendship in a warm, firm pressure, which had not ended when they became conscious that the door had softly opened and Master Leoni was standing there, a dark, peculiar-looking, living picture in an oaken frame, an inscrutable-looking smile upon his lips and his eyes half closed.
The blood flushed to the cheeks of both the lads, as the young Englishman tightened his grip and stood firm, while without appearing to have noticed the lads’ action, Leoni came forward, and they saw that he had a little silver flacon in his hand.
“Feel faint now, Denis?” he said.
“Oh no,” was the reply. “That passed away at once. Is that what you have been to fetch?”
“Yes,” said Leoni, smiling, “and you need not think that I am going to give you drops in water such as will make you shudder. I am only going to moisten this linen pad and lay it beneath your waistcoat. I believe it will quite dull the pain. There,” he said, a few minutes later, after carefully securing the moistened linen so that it should not slip, and fastening the lad’s doublet to his throat, “it feels better now, does it not?”
“Better?” said Denis with a low hiss, and speaking through his teeth. “Why, it’s as if a red-hot point was boring through my shoulder.”
“Yes,” said Leoni, smiling; “and that’s a good sign. In another minute you will not feel the same. Come, Master Carrbroke, let us both finish dressing our patient and get him to his breakfast.”