“Not only that; I come prepared to leave you all that you will require.”
He produced a bulky package from his pocket, and, beckoning Holles to the table, there opened it, and enumerated the lesser packages it contained and the purposes of each.
“Here is a stimulating ointment with which you will rub the swelling in the armpit every two hours. Thereafter you will apply to it a poultice of mallows, linseed, and palm oil. Here is mithridate, of which you will administer a dose as an alexipharmic, and two hours later you will give her a posset drink of Canary and spirits of sulphur. The spirits of sulphur are here. Make a fire of sea-coal in her bedroom, and heap all available blankets upon her, that she may throw out as much as may be of the poison in perspiring.
“For to-night, if you do that, you will have done all that can be done. I shall return very early in the morning, and we will then consider further measures.”
He turned to the examiner: “You have heard, sir?”
The man nodded. “I’ve already bidden the constable send a watchman. He will be here by now and I’ll see the house closed when we go forth.”
“It but remains, then,” said the doctor, “to have the lady put to bed. Then I will take my leave of you until to-morrow.”
This, however, was a service the lady was still able to perform for herself. When Holles, disregarding the physician’s aid, had, single-handed, carried her to the room above, she recovered sufficiently to demand that she should be left to herself; and, despite her obvious weakness, Dr. Beamish concurred that to permit her to have her own way in the matter would be to make the more speed in the end.
The effort of undressing, however, so exhausted her and awoke such torturing pains that, when at last she got to bed, she lay there, panting, reduced to a state of utter prostration.
Thus Holles and the physician found her on their return. Dr. Beamish placed upon a table at the foot of the bed all the things that Holles would require, and, repeating his injunctions, took his leave at last. The Colonel went with him to the door of the house. This was standing open, and by the light of a lantern held by the watchman the examiner was completing the rudely wrought inscription, Lord have mercy upon us, under the ominous red cross which he had daubed above.