Falcon saw death in his face; gave a shriek, drew his revolver, and
fired at him with as little aim as he had at the lioness; then made for
the open window. Staines seized a chair, followed him, and hurled it
at him; and the chair and the man went through the window together, and
then there was a strange thud heard outside.
Rosa gave a loud scream, and swooned away.
Staines laid his wife flat on the floor, got the women about her, and at
last she began to give the usual signs of returning life.
Staines said to the oldest woman there, “If she sees me, she will go
off again. Carry her to her room; and tell her, by degrees, that I am
alive.”
All this time Papa Lusignan had sat trembling and whimpering in a chair,
moaning, “This is a painful scene--very painful.” But at last an idea
struck him--“WHY, YOU HAVE ROBBED THE OFFICE!”
Scarcely was Mrs. Staines out of the room, when a fly drove up, and this
was immediately followed by violent and continuous screaming close under
the window.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Papa Lusignan.
They ran down, and found Falcon impaled at full length on the spikes of
the villa, and Phoebe screaming over him, and trying in vain to lift
him off them. He had struggled a little, in silent terror, but had then
fainted from fear and loss of blood, and lying rather inside the rails,
which were high, he could not be extricated from the outside.
As soon as his miserable condition was discovered, the servants ran down
into the kitchen, and so up to the rails by the area steps. These
rails had caught him; one had gone clean through his arm, the other had
penetrated the fleshy part of the thigh, and a third pierced his ear.
They got him off; but he was insensible, and the place drenched with his
blood.
Phoebe clutched Staines by the arm. “Let me know the worst,” said she.
“Is he dead?”
Staines examined him, and said “No.”
“Can you save him?”
“I?”
“Yes. Who can, if you cannot? Oh, have mercy on me!” and she went on her
knees to him, and put her forehead on his knees.
He was touched by her simple faith; and the noble traditions of his
profession sided with his gratitude to this injured woman. “My poor
friend,” said he, “I will do my best, for YOUR sake.”
He took immediate steps for stanching the blood; and the fly carried
Phoebe and her villain to the inn at Gravesend.
Falcon came to on the road; but finding himself alone with Phoebe,
shammed unconsciousness of everything but pain.
Staines, being thoroughly enraged with Rosa, yet remembering his solemn
vow never to abuse her again, saw her father, and told him to tell her
he should think over her conduct quietly, not wishing to be harder upon
her than she deserved.
Rosa, who had been screaming, and crying for joy, ever since she came to
her senses, was not so much afflicted at this message as one might have
expected. He was alive, and all things else were trifles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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