He started at the voice, and looked up even eagerly. But his eyes dulled and deadened again as he fell back.
"I did but dream!" he muttered, sadly.
"You have no one with you here, Gottfried Gottfried?" said I again, for in a matter of life and death it was as well to make sure even at risk of disturbing a dying man.
He set his hand to his brow as if trying to think.
"Who should be with me—except all these?" he answered, very solemnly. And swept his hand about the room as if he saw strange shapes standing in rows round the walls. "I wish," he went on, almost querulously, "whoever you may be, you would tell these people to keep their hands down. They point at me, and thrust their dripping heads forward, holding them like lanterns in their palms."
He turned away to the back of the bed, and then, as if he saw something there worse than all the rest, faced about again quickly, saying, with some pathetic intonation of his lost childhood, "There is no need for them to point so at me, is there? I did but my duty."
"Father!" said I, gently touching his cheek with my hand as I used to do.
"Ah, what is that?" he said, quickly. "Did some one call me father? Let me go! I tell you, sirs, let me go! She needs me. They are torturing her. I must go to her!"
"Father," I said again, putting him gently back, "it is I—your own son
Hugo—come back to speak with you, to help if it may be—to die for the
Little Playmate if need be."
"Hugo—Hugo!" he said. "Yes, yes—of course, I know—my little lad, my pretty boy!"