"Tell his poor girl he died wudout suffering."
"He äun't dead," said Reuben.
He had torn off the rags from his brother's heart, and felt it beating.
"He äun't dead."
"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch.—"Oh Lord!"
"Here, you chaps, fetch a gëat and put him on it—and döan't let Naomi see him."
Naomi had been taken back to Odiam, when Harry, still motionless and apparently dead, was lifted on a gate, and borne away. Dark curds of smoke drifted among the willows, and the acrid smell of powder clung to the hillside like an evil ghost. The place where Harry had lain was marked by charred and trampled grass, and a great pool of blood was sinking into the ground ... it seemed to Reuben, as he turned shudderingly away, as if Boarzell were drinking it up—eagerly, greedily, as a thirsty land drinks up its first watering.
§ 8.
Dr. Espinette from Rye stood glumly by Harry's bed. His finger lay on the fluttering pulse, and his eye studied the little of the sick man's face that could be seen between its bandages.
"It's a bad business," he said at last; "that wound in the head's the worst of it. The burns aren't very serious in themselves. You must keep him quiet, and I'll call again to-morrow morning."