There was blood on Sibyl’s lips and a look of death in her ghastly face; yet she smiled, and tried to stand more erect, when she saw Mary.
“Help me into the house, please,” she whispered faintly; “I—I’m afraid I’m hurt.”
Supported by Pearl on one side and by Lucy and Mary on the other, Sibyl entered the house. Inside the doorway she reeled and put her hand to her eyes. She stiffened with a shudder, as she recovered.
“I must lie down!” she gasped; but when she took another step the blindness and faintness returned, and she fell, in spite of the supporting arms.
Pearl’s cry of alarm and consternation reached the room where Philip Davison lay. It was a lower room and furthest removed from the mesa, but he had heard the rumble of the stampede. The sound of excited voices, Sibyl’s heavy fall, and that outcry from Pearl Harkness, called back the wasted strength to his weakened body. He appeared in the connecting doorway, half dressed, and with a blanket drawn round his shrunken shoulders. He looked a spectre and not a man; his bearded cheeks were hollowed, his straight nose appeared to crook over the sunken mouth like the beak of a bird, and his blue eyes, gleaming from cavernous sockets, stared with unnatural brightness. Seeing Sibyl on the floor with the frightened women about her, he came forward and offered to help. Nothing could have astounded them more than this, for they thought he had not strength to walk.
“Put her in the bed there,” he commanded, indicating an adjoining room.
He stooped to assist in lifting her; but the faintness was passing, and she showed that she was still able to assist herself.
“Yes, put me in the bed,” she panted.
They helped her to the bed, Davison following with tottering steps, trying to aid. Mary shook the pillow into shape and placed it under her head. Sibyl observed her and put up her gloved hand to touch Mary’s hair.
“You are here, dear; I—I am so glad!”