"Ghastly sight, hain't it, sir—that bloody gash on 'is 'ead?"
"Quick! Put him on the sofa.—Now some water."
The servant, whose limbs were numb from the long carry, obeyed with alacrity. But returning hurriedly with the water, he was met at the door by his perverse master, who took the glass from his hands with the curt announcement that that would do.
Henry looked as displeased as his subservient position made advisable.
"Hif you please, sir, I have quite a 'and with the hinjured and—"
"He's only stunned," said his master impatiently. "I 'll attend to him myself."
And he banged the door in the servant's face.
The man lay on the lounge precisely as Henry had happened to place him, his averted face half buried in the pillows. Investigation showed that he had no bloody gash on his head: that was Henry's imagination. There did not, in fact, seem to be a mark on him beyond three small scratches on his forehead.
Stanhope put his hand under the chin and turned it toward him, none too gently. For a full moment he stood motionless, staring down at that white face so like his own. Then he dipped his hand in the glass, and splashed a handful of water upon the closed eyes.
At the first touch of it, the still figure of the injured man stirred with faint signs of returning consciousness. Far down in a black and utter void, he sensed the first glimmer of distant light. Slowly, slowly, the glimmer grew. The silence within gave place to a vast roaring in his ears and indescribable pain in his head; and the dull glow which had seemed to him the shining frontier of some far new world whither he was gratefully journeying, resolved itself into a circle of greenish light.
"Drink this," said a soft but peremptory voice.