I felt her bend over me, her soft breath coming almost in sobs upon my face, as with trembling fingers she undid the buttons of my trooper's jacket and extracted the small flat flask I had been thoughtful enough to store away there.
The fiery liquid seemed to put new blood into my veins, and with it there returned all my old-time audacity, with that intense hopefulness in which I had been trained by years of war and self-reliance.
“Ah! now I feel I am myself once more,” I exclaimed cheerily. “Things are surely not so bad after all. At least we have a roof over our heads, and another day in which to live.”
I felt her shudder.
“Oh, please do not make light of it,” she whispered. “It is so like some horrid dream, and I am trembling yet.” I put my hand upon hers, and it was not withdrawn.
“I trust you realize,” I said, “that I am neither thoughtless nor ungrateful. Years of war service make one careless of life, but I know it was your shot that saved me. You are a brave girl.”
Her overtaxed nerves gave way at my words, and I knew she was crying softly. The sobbing was in her voice as she strove to speak.
“Oh, no, I am not; you do not guess how great a coward I am. I scarcely knew what I was doing when I fired. That horrid thing—what was it?”
“A huge mastiff, I imagine; one of the largest of his breed. But whatever it may have been, the beast is dead, and we have nothing more to fear from him.”
“Yet I tremble so,” she confessed, almost hysterically. “Every shadow frightens me.”