As he entered, Master Tobias turned aside, rinsed his hands in a metal basin placed upon the floor, and rose wiping them on a napkin.
“I can do no more, Sir John,” he muttered in a desponding voice. “He is sped.”
“Dead, d’ye mean?” cried Sir John, a catch in his voice.
The surgeon tossed aside the napkin, and slowly drew down the upturned sleeves of his black doublet. “All but dead,” he answered. “The wonder is that any spark of life should still linger in a body with that hole in it. He is bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening. It must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away. You may count him dead already, Sir John.” He paused. “A merciful, painless end,” he added, and sighed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave, for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life. “Of the other four,” he continued, “Blair is dead; the other three should all recover.”
But Sir John gave little heed to the matter of those others. His grief and dismay at this quenching of all hope for his friend precluded any other consideration at the moment.
“And he will not even recover consciousness?” he asked insisting, although already he had been answered.
“As I have said, you may count him dead already, Sir John. My skill can do nothing for him.”
Sir John’s head drooped, his countenance drawn and grave. “Nor can my justice,” he added gloomily. “Though it avenge him, it cannot give me back my friend.” He looked at the surgeon. “Vengeance, sir, is the hollowest of all the mockeries that go to make up life.”
“Your task, Sir John,” replied the surgeon, “is one of justice, not vengeance.”
“A quibble, when all is said.” He stepped to Lionel’s side, and looked down at the pale handsome face over which the dark shadows of death were already creeping. “If he would but speak in the interests of this justice that is to do! If we might but have the evidence of his own words, lest I should ever be asked to justify the hanging of Oliver Tressilian.”