I was only a moment, but in that moment some one opened the door in the passage against which the man lay and so brought him into the light, and I could not help taking a look at him.
My heart stopped with the horror of it; my whole being fell to pieces at the agony of it. I remember running from it as from the gates of hell. I remember reeling on the stairs. I remember a headlong fall. I remember no more.
It was Jack.
[CHAPTER XV]
IN THE MOORLANDS
I was in bed, there was no doubt about that, and a strange sort of bed too, for it moved lightly and deliciously through the keen, open air like the magic carpet of the Eastern tale. The bedposts at my feet were most curiously carved into life-like images of warriors, so life-like, indeed, that when the one on the right turned its shaggy head and spoke to the one on the left, I was not shocked and scarcely surprised. Bed it was, however, for mother's soft, smooth hand was on my cheek, and under the balm of its touch I went off to sleep again.
When my eyes opened again, the mists had cleared out of them and I was no longer in the land of shadows. The carven bedposts were Highlanders; the bed was a litter slung between four of them; the touch was hers. Somebody spoke, the Highlanders came to a halt, and Margaret bent over me. Her face was pale, grave, and anxious.
"Are you better, Oliver?" she whispered.
"As right as rain," I answered, pushing my new trouble behind me and speaking stoutly because of the whiteness of her face.
"Try to sleep again. You've had a bad fall, and there's an ugly cut in your skull."