But he was so obviously ill that Roy paid no heed. "Well, I'm going to send for Collins instanter."
"Don't make an ass of yourself, Roy," Lance flashed out: but his hands were shaking: his lips were shaking. He was no longer in command of affairs....
While the message sped on its way, Roy got him to bed somehow; eased things a little with hot bottles and brandy; nameless terrors knocking at his heart....
In less than no time Collins appeared, with the Colonel; and their faces told Roy that his terror was only too well founded....
Within an hour he knew the worst—acute blood-poisoning from the láthi wound.
"Any hope——?" he asked the genial doctor, while Paul Desmond knelt by the bed speaking to his brother in low tones.
"Too early to give an opinion," was the cautious answer. But the caution and the man's whole manner told Roy the incredible, unbearable truth.
Something inside him seemed to snap. In that moment of bewildered agony, he felt like a murderer....
Looking back afterwards, Roy marvelled how he had lived through the waking nightmare of those two days—while the doctor did all that was humanly possible, and Lance pitted all the clean strength of his manhood against the swift deadly progress of the poison in his veins. It was simply a question of hours; of fighting the devil to the last on principle, rather than from any likelihood of victory. With heart and hope broken, superhumanly they struggled on.