CHAPTER XXXIV
CLOTILDE AS A SURGEON
Was it worse to stay, or to fly? The decision must be instantaneous. But Raoul made it easy by crying in their common tongue, as he slammed a massive shutter and shot its bolt:
"Go to him! he is down--I heard him fall. Go to him!"
At this rallying cry she seized her shield--that is to say, the little yellow attendant--and hurried into the room. Joseph lay just beyond the middle of the apartment, face downward. She found water and a basin, wet her own handkerchief, and dropped to her knees beside his head; but the moment he felt the small feminine hands he stood up. She took him by the arm.
"Asseyez-vous, Monsieu'--pliz to give you'sev de pens to seet down, 'Sieu' Frowenfel'."
She spoke with a nervous tenderness in contrast with her alarmed and entreating expression of face, and gently pushed him into a chair.
The child ran behind the bed and burst into frightened sobs, but ceased when Clotilde turned for an instant and glared at her.
"Mague yo' 'ead back," said Clotilde, and with tremulous tenderness she softly pressed back his brow and began wiping off the blood. "W'ere you is 'urted?"
But while she was asking her question she had found the gash and was growing alarmed at its ugliness, when Raoul, having made everything fast, came in with: