Neither was dead, though Lucian was near it; long after Charlesworth was able to speak and walk, and even help to revive his companion in suffocation, he still lay deeply unconscious. His frail life was so easily imperilled; and they had first been half poisoned by fumes and afterwards half stifled by their own breath. At the first explosion the slab had split off and fallen like a roof above them; the second blast piled rocks upon it and made it the roof of a tomb. All this Charlesworth narrated as he sat fanning Lucian’s face, himself deathly white, with a jagged gash under his ear. Lucian looked like death itself, but still he breathed; and with the aid of copious douches of fresh water they brought him at last to consciousness. Farquhar straightway threw him over his shoulder and carried him to the hotel, leaving Charlesworth to follow as he might. Sad to say, the first use which Lucian made of his recovered speech was to murmur feebly at intervals, “I’m drunk—I’m drunk—O take me home to ma!”
At the hotel they received something like an ovation; and before ten minutes had passed Laurette had told her aunt in the village, and the aunt her husband, and half the men in Vresse were hurrying out to give welcome. Nothing would content them but that Farquhar should make an oration; and when he came out on the balcony, a ghastly figure with his bloodless face and the blood-stained bandage stained afresh on his arm, they cheered him like a king. Never was any one in Vresse so popular as the unpopular English master; they adored him for purging them from the guilt of blood. Even Charlesworth came in for a share of the glorification, because he had not let himself be murdered; and when they had shouted themselves hoarse, and trampled down all the tobacco growing in Laurette’s garden, and drunk six glasses apiece of Laurette’s most innocent beer, they went home wildly enthusiastic and perfectly sober. Farquhar, having displayed his scars for their edification with his usual ironical smile, went to his room to wash and change before visiting Lucian. He conceived that for the present he would have no more trouble with his workmen. Then, at last, he took the two blue letters and went to Lucian’s room.
The invalid was lying dressed upon the sofa; he had endured the doctor, had refused to go to bed, and was now ready to discuss his experience with gusto. He had already been doing so with Charlesworth, who got up from a chair by the sofa when Farquhar came in. The invalid at once patted the chair.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said, hospitably. “Let’s fight our battles all o’er again. I’ve been taking notes of everybody’s sensations all round, and I’m going to write a realistic Christmas-number tale—‘The Tragedy of Penywern Quarry; or, Little Willy Wears Poor Father’s Pants.’ How’s that for a title, hey?”
Charlesworth, however, declined to criticise. “I’ve got to thank you for my life, sir,” he said, looking Farquhar straight in the face, as he always did. “If we’d stayed in that hole till the shovel-and-pick department nosed us out to-day or to-morrow, I guess they’d have got empty shells for their pains. Now I’ve a use for my life, and so has my wife. I don’t know whether gratitude’s any use to you, sir, but you may count on mine.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Farquhar, easily. But he met and returned Charlesworth’s look with some degree of honesty; and when Farquhar was honest his eyes had the latent dangerous cruelty of one of the great cats, panther or leopard or tiger, and they showed the force of a will keen as a knife-blade to cut through obstacles. Charlesworth recognised these two unpleasant qualities and did not flinch; perhaps he had guessed that Farquhar was too good to be true. His steadiness called out a glint of satisfaction; when they had shaken hands, each felt this encounter to be the foundation of a friendship. “You’ll continue as manager?” Farquhar said, as the American was going; and, “While you want me, sir,” came the proudly respectful reply.
Farquhar was left alone with Lucian; the reckoning hour had come.
Lucian was looking after Charlesworth with a lamentable air. “I like that man, but he don’t care a red cent for me,” he said, pathetically. “He makes me feel so awfully small that I’m only fit for a microscope. And yet I’m sure I’ve been splendidly heroic. I had a splitting headache, and I never once let on. Though, to be sure, he mightn’t have known that. What are you looking so down in the mouth for, sonny?”
Farquhar flung the letter at him and turned on his heel; he stood staring out of the window, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and clenched there. He heard Lucian’s “Hullo!” the tearing of the envelope, the withdrawal of the folded sheet grating against the torn flap. Then Lucian sprang off the sofa and came and dropped a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m awfully glad, old man, and that’s the truth,” he said. “I knew you’d win.”