Meanwhile, Mellish had been dragged from beneath the train and seated on
the knee of one of his companions. He was in a stupor, and had a large
lump on his brow. His eye was almost closed. The man with the crushed
nose now showed himself an expert surgeon. While Cashel supported the
patient on the knee of another man, and the rest of the party kept off
the crowd by mingled persuasion and violence, he produced a lancet
and summarily reduced the swelling by lancing it. He then dressed the
puncture neatly with appliances for that purpose which he carried about
him, and shouted in Mellish’s ear to rouse him. But the trainer only
groaned, and let his head drop inert on his breast. More shouting was
resorted to, but in vain. Cashel impatiently expressed an opinion that
Mellish was shamming, and declared that he would not stand there to be
fooled with all the evening.
“If he was my pal ‘stead o’ yours,” said the man with the broken nose,
“I’d wake him up fast enough.”
“I’ll save you the trouble,” said Cashel, coolly stooping and seizing
between his teeth the cartilage of the trainer’s ear.
“That’s the way to do it,” said the other, approvingly, as Mellish
screamed and started to his feet. “Now, then. Up with you.”
He took Mellish’s right arm, Cashel took the left, and they brought
him away between them without paying the least heed to his tears, his
protestations that he was hurt, his plea that he was an old man, or his
bitter demand as to where Cashel would have been at that moment without
his care.
Lord Worthington had taken advantage of this accident to slip away from
his travelling companions and drive alone to his lodgings in Jermyn
Street. He was still greatly excited; and when his valet, an old
retainer with whom he was on familiar terms, brought him a letter that
had arrived during his absence, he asked him four times whether any
one had called, and four times interrupted him by scraps of information
about the splendid day he had had and the luck he was in.
“I bet five hundred even that it would be over in a quarter of an hour;
and then I bet Byron two hundred and fifty to one that it wouldn’t.
That’s the way to doit; eh, Bedford? Catch Cashel letting two hundred
and fifty slip through his fingers! By George, though, he’s an artful
card. At the end of fourteen minutes I thought my five hundred was
corpsed. The Dutchman was full of fight; and Cashel suddenly turned weak
and tried to back out of the rally. You should have seen the gleam in
the Dutchman’s eye when he rushed in after him. He made cock-sure of
finishing him straight off.”
“Indeed, my lord. Dear me!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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