"We must keep awake," I called beguilingly into the slumbrous face, after a long silence, as if to a child. "Awake!"
A sigh, as he smiled in answer, shook him from head to foot.
"You are thirsty? What's this on your coat? Look, there is a gate. I'll creep through and get help." I scrambled up, endeavouring in vain to clutch at the reins.
But no; his head stirred its No; the left hand still held them fast. "Only ... wait."
Was it "wait"—that last faint word? It fell into my mind like a leaf into a torrent, and before I could be sure of it, the sound was gone.
Instinct, neither his nor mine, guided us on through the winding lanes, up hill and down, along the margin of sleeping wood and light-dappled stream, over a level crossing whose dew-rusted rails gleamed in the moon, then up once more, the retreating hill-side hollowly echoing to every clap of hoof against stone. There was no strength or will left in me, only thoughts which in the dark within, between waking and sleeping, seemed like hovering flies to veer and dart—fantasies, fragments of dream, rather than thoughts.
I realized how sorely he was hurt, yet not then in my stupidity and horror—or is it that I refused to confess it to myself?—that his hurt was mortal. Morning would come soon. I grasped tight the hand in mine. Then help. In this monotony and weariness of mind and body, the passing trees seemed to dance and gesticulate before my eyes. A torturing drowsiness crept over me which in vain, thrusting up my eyelids with my fingers, beating my senseless feet on the floor of the cart, I tried to dispel. Once, I remember, I rose and threw my cape over his shoulder. At last I must have slept.
For the next thing I became conscious of was that the cart was at a standstill, and that the pony stood cropping the thyme-sweet turf by the wayside. I touched the cold dark hand. "Hush, my dear, we are here!"
But I expected no answer. The head was sunken between the heavy shoulders; the pallid features were set in an empty stare. There wasn't a sound in the whole world, far or near. "Oh, but you haven't said a single word to me!" It was the only speech in my mind—a reproach. It died on my lips; I drew away. What was this?—a dreadful fear plucked at my sleeve, fear of the company I was in, of a solitude never so much as tasted before. I leapt out of the cart, stood up in the dust, and in the creeping light stared about me.