CHAPTER XIV.
"BUCK UP, SCHOOL!"
It was night, and everything was very dark. Somewhere, a million miles away, was a pinpoint of light. He kept his eyes fixed upon it, because it seemed the one thing in the world where there was any hope. Someone was swinging him backwards and forwards through space, sometimes bringing him near the light and then drawing him steadily back until it seemed that he would never reach it. He could not put out a hand to touch it, even when it drew near, and he knew that the pain that wrapped him round would be gone if he could but grasp it. There were sharp cords holding him tightly, cutting into him; and all the time the ceaseless swinging, swinging. He tried to cry out, but no sound would come.
Then a hand came on his brow, so cool, so gentle, that the formless blackness wavered and melted, and the light grew stronger. The utter helplessness was still there; but the sense of being gripped by something mercilessly cruel faded, and it was as though something infinitely pitiful was holding him quietly. He gasped, "Don't let me swing!" and the soft touch held him closer until he was still and quiet. The light came nearer. Pain was there yet, but pain was as nothing compared to the relief of stillness. Nothing mattered, if only those soft hands would hold him—would keep him from swinging into space again.
Gradually the darkness melted. Things took shape in a kind of dim twilight; he looked long at a strange silver ball, floating in space, before he knew that it was but the knob on his bed-post. The window of his room came out of the dimness; through it he could see gum leaves on boughs that fluttered softly in the breeze. These things he saw because they were in front of him; to turn his head was a task much too hard to be thought of, no matter what might be there. It troubled him that he could not, because he felt something beside him that he wanted desperately to see—something soft that nestled close to his cheek. If it moved, he grew afraid, and cried to it to come back, and it always came quickly and gently, so that he was not afraid any more. Still nestling to it, he drifted into sleep.
"You can get up." The doctor was bending over Mrs. Lester, whispering, "He's asleep."
"He might wake if I moved." Her lips formed the words almost without sound. She could not bear him to cry to her again, in his agony, for the help that only the touch of her lips against his cheek had seemed able to give.
"He won't—yet. The medicine has taken effect." The doctor's face was almost as ghastly as her own; together they had fought death in the little room for thirty-six hours.
He helped her to her feet gently. John Lester slipped an arm about her, putting her into a chair. Her eyes asked the question that her lips could not frame.
"Good, as far as it goes," the doctor answered. "That the sleep has come at all is a big thing; now, we can only hope that it will last long enough to rest him. He wants it, poor little chap."
"You want it, too," her husband said gently. "Come and lie down while he sleeps."