With Jamie still clinging to her she went up the pair of steps to the front door, rang the night-bell, and knocked long and loud. Then, all at once her strength that had lasted gave way, and she sank on the doorsteps, without indeed losing consciousness, but losing in an instant all power of doing or thinking, of striving any more for Jamie or for herself.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A RESCUE.
A window overhead was thrown open, and a voice that Judith recognized as that of Mrs. Obadiah Scantlebray, called: “Who is there?—what is wanted?”
The girl could not answer. The power to speak was gone from her. It was as though all her faculties, exerted to the full, had at once given way. She could not rise from the steps on which she had sunk: the will to make the effort was gone. Her head was fallen against the jamb of the door and the knot of the kerchief was between her head and the wood, and hurt her, but even the will to lift her hands and shift the bandage one inch was not present.
The mill-wheel revolves briskly, throwing the foaming water out of its buckets, with a lively rattle, then its movement slackens, it strains, the buckets fill and even spill, but the wheel seems to be reduced to statuariness. That stress point is but for a moment, then the weight of the water overbalances the strain, and whirr! round plunges the wheel, and the bright foaming water is whisked about, and the buckets disgorge their contents.
It is the same with the wheel of human life. It has its periods of rapid and glad revolutions, and also its moments of supreme tension, when it is all but overstrung—when its movement is hardly perceptible. The strain put on Judith’s faculties had been excessive, and now those faculties failed her, failed her absolutely. The prostration might not last long—it might last forever. It is so sometimes when there has been overexertion; thought stops, will ceases to act, sensation dies into numbness, the heart beats slow, slower, then perhaps stops finally.
It was not quite come to that with Judith. She knew that she had rushed into danger again, the very danger from which she had just escaped, she knew it, but she was incapable of acting on the knowledge.
“Who is below?” was again called from an upper window.
Judith, with open eyes, heard that the rain was still falling heavily, heard the shoot of water from the roof plash down into the runnel of the street, felt the heavy drops come down on her from the architrave over the door, and she saw something in the roadway: shadows stealing along the same as she had seen before, but passing in a reversed direction. These were again men and beasts, but their feet and hoofs were no longer inaudible, they trod in the puddles and splashed and squelched the water and mud about, at each step. The smugglers had delivered the supplies agreed on, at the houses of those who dealt with them, and were now returning, the asses no longer laden.