“No, sir. He got up when they told him, and went down the mine.”
“Why, he wasn’t fit to stir! This way, sir.”
Robson led them into his room; and there Dinah fell upon her knees beside a mattress, upon which, pale and stern, with his head enveloped in a broad bandage, lay Clive Reed, his eyes half-closed, and his lips moving as he went on muttering incoherently; while as Dinah bent down over him, she heard her name faintly whispered.
For a moment she believed that it was in recognition of her presence, and her heart gave one great leap of joy. But it sank down directly into a slow, feeble beat, as she grasped only too truly that the speaker was delirious, and there was a look in his face which sent a terrible foreboding to her heart.
“Let him not die, O God, without knowing that I was his very own,” she moaned to herself, as an intense longing came over her to clasp him tightly to her heart.
Then she gave way, and rose with a low sigh, as her father said sternly—
“Let me come, my child. Minutes are precious. At all costs we will get him away from here.”
What followed was like a dream, but she heard the Major’s sharp military voice as he gave decisive commands. She saw him remove the bandage and replace it with another well saturated with water, and then as she stood back, she saw four sturdy, willing men stoop down at her father’s order, each take a corner of the thin, narrow mattress upon which Clive lay, and keeping step, bear him out of the place and along the path toward the entrance of the gap. Then she was conscious that she was walking behind in the little procession, with the Major grasping her arm, and carrying a large bottle of water.
“It is the best way,” he said, “and he will see the doctor all the sooner, for he must pass us on his way from Blinkdale.”
The little procession went steadily on, Robson leaving them now, and Dinah’s breath came more freely as they reached the mouth of the gap, and turned round on to the path without Sturgess having been seen. In this fashion they made their way steadily on to the cottage, the Major calling a halt, so that he could saturate the bandage from time to time. But the little ambulance party had hardly passed out of sight of the mine entrance, when in answer to the signal the engine gear began to work, the wire rope ran over the wheel as it revolved rapidly, till with a sudden clang the ascending cage reached the platform and Sturgess stepped out, with his arm and shoulder roughly bound up, and with a wild look in his eyes as they burned feverishly above his hollow, pallid cheeks.