I looked up at him in a confused, puzzled way, and as I looked his face began to grow misty, and the candle to burn more dimly, till both faded slowly away, and all was dark once more.
I opened my eyes once more, and there was Mr Raydon standing by me with a candle, and it was so faint that I could not be sure; and so it was again and again as it seemed to me, and when I opened my eyes at last, the bedroom window was wide, the sun shining in, and bringing with it the sweet lemon-scented odour of the pines, and Esau was seated there watching me.
“Hush!” he said, as I was opening my lips to speak. “Mustn’t talk.”
“Nonsense,” I said; “I want to know.”
I stopped there, for my voice puzzled me, and I lay wondering for a few moments, till, like a flash of the sunshine coming into my darkened brain, I recollected the blow, the report of the rifle, and Esau’s cry, and knew that the rifle had gone off when he fell, and I was lying there badly wounded.
“Mr Raydon said you wasn’t to speak a word,” said Esau, softly; and he stole out of the room so quietly that I knew he must be without his boots.
A few minutes passed, and the door opened again, with Mr Raydon coming in on tiptoe to advance and take my right hand within his left, and place a couple of fingers on my wrist. I smiled as he played the part of doctor like this, and he smiled back.
“Don’t talk,” he said; “I’ll do that, my lad. Come, this is better. Not so feverish as I expected. Just whisper when I ask a question. Feel in much pain?”
“My shoulder aches and burns,” I said.
“Yes; it will for a time; but that will soon go off. You remember now about the accident? Yes? That’s right. You were a little delirious last night, and made me anxious, for we have no doctor hereabouts.”