None of them moved.
"Have I got to do it myself?" I asked, rather angrily.
The retired officer pushed the doctor aside, took two steps forward and laid his hand on the musket. "Ready?" he asked.
"I am."
"Hold hard," he said, and pulled the trigger.
The world seemed to lift up into the air all at once, its foundations tearing apart with a noise like all hell bursting in half; then it slowly toppled down again, and everything was blackness and hot, searing death.
The last thing I remember was the scream of the beautiful girl, she who was as lovely as a summer sky.
CHAPTER II
I lay in the warm bed and for a long time I tried to think of something that I knew I should recall, and at last, after hours of waking and dozing and waking again, I had it; it was the fact that I was not dead. When I knew this for certain I was extremely surprised, in the weak fashion of the very ill. I slept once more, and when I woke again I was stronger and more in command of my mind. I was still a little astonished that I was alive. Then I began to wonder whether I was blind. The knowledge that I would not know about this for some days was intolerable. I yelled angrily, and a cool hand was laid across my lips.