“They've made a pretty mess of me,” said Durnovo in a sickening, lifeless voice—and he stood there, with a terrible caricature of a grin.
Joseph set down the lamp with a groan, and went back into the dark room beyond, where he cast himself upon the ground and buried his face in his hands.
“O Lord!” he muttered. “O God in heaven—kill it, kill it!”
Guy Oscard never attempted to run away from it. He stood slowly gulping down his nauseating horror. His teeth were clenched; his face, through the sunburn, livid; the blue of his eyes seemed to have faded into an ashen grey. The sight he was looking on would have sent three men out of five into gibbering idiocy.
Then at last he moved forward. With averted eyes he took Durnovo by the arm.
“Come,” he said, “lie down upon my bed. I will try and help you. Can you take some food?”
Durnovo threw himself down heavily on the bed. There was a punishment sufficient to expiate all his sins in the effort he saw that Guy Oscard had had to make before he touched him. He turned his face away.
“I haven't eaten anything for twenty-four hours,” he said, with a whistling intonation.
“Joseph,” said Oscard, returning to the door of the inner room—his voice sounded different, there was a metallic ring in it—“get something for Mr. Durnovo—some soup or something.”
Joseph obeyed, shaking as if ague were in his bones.