CHAPTER XVI
The Discovery
But between eight and nine o’clock on that same evening Eugenia opened her eyes. She was unable to think clearly at first and stared in amazement at the canopy of blue sky above her head. What had become of the familiar ceiling of her room at the farmhouse?
But then her head was aching dully so that it made her more uncomfortable to try to think at all. She did not even wish to call for the other girls, because Barbara would probably come to her in a little while. She remembered that Barbara had been especially kind when she had just such another absurd headache a short time before.
Closing her eyes again, Eugenia rested. But something warm and soft seemed to be moving about near her face, breathing over her in a curious, enveloping fashion impossible from a human being. It was like a damp cloud.
Putting out her hand, Eugenia touched Duke’s moist nose, and then almost instantly returned to a knowledge of the situation.
She recalled in detail the events of the past afternoon, but could find no explanation for her own presence here upon the ground among the wounded. For she was not suffering sufficient pain to suggest that she had been shot by a stray rifle ball from the enemy’s lines. Moreover, Eugenia found that she could move both her arms and legs without difficulty. They were stiff, but that may have been due either to fatigue or to her position upon the earth. However, the ache in her head continued so that Eugenia put up her fingers to her temple. There was a curious something clotted on her hair at the left side, which she at once knew to be blood.
Then she understood what had happened. A piece of shell from an exploding bomb must have struck and stunned her into unconsciousness. However, it must have come from such a distance that it had spent its force, for she was not seriously injured. Already the slight scalp wound had closed and was no longer bleeding.
Eugenia rose up slowly to a sitting position, realizing fully the gravity of her situation. Yet she would not allow herself to reflect upon its horrors. She must decide what she should best do. Would it be wiser to stay where she was for the rest of the night or try to seek assistance? Yet what had taken place in the countryside during the afternoon while she lay in a stupor? Were the French or the Germans in possession of the neighborhood?
However, Eugenia was not to be allowed to reach her decision alone. For no sooner had she gotten up than Duke once more began pulling at her dress, very softly at first, as one who has respect for an invalid, but no less insistently.
A dog’s devotion and a dog’s persistence are two qualities worthy of human admiration and wonder.