Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Fiction
Then Madam herself, clad in a long white night-dress and with bare
feet, suddenly pushed us aside and fell upon her knees beside the
wounded man.
She lifted his head. The face was pale and the eyes closed. She laid
it gently down and looked round.
'You have killed him,' she said, speaking not in a rage or passion,
but quietly. 'You have killed him. To-morrow you will hang! you will
all hang!'
We said nothing.
'Doctor,' she turned to me, 'tell me if he is dead or living.'
She snatched the lanthorn and held it while I made such examination
as was possible. I opened his waistcoat and laid back his shirt.
The sword had run straight through him and broken off short, perhaps
by contact with his ribs. The broken point remained in the wound and
the flesh had closed around it, so that, save for a drop of blood or
two oozing out, there was no flow.
It needs no great knowledge to understand that when a man hath six
inches of steel in his body which cannot be pulled out, and when he
is bleeding inwardly, he must die.
Still, as physicians use, I did not tell her so.
'Madam,' I said, 'he is not dead; he is living. While there is life,
there is hope.'
'Oh!' she cried; 'why did he buy you when he could have had the
common sort? You will hang--you will hang, every one!'
'That shall we presently discover,' said Barnaby. 'Humphrey, we have
now no choice left--what did I tell thee about the chances of the
night? We must go this night. As for this villain, let him bleed to
death.'
'Go!' said Madam. 'Whither, unhappy men, will you go? There is no
place in the island where you can hide but with bloodhounds they
will have you out. You can go nowhere in this island but you will be
found and hanged, unless you are shot like rats in a hole.'
'Come, Humphrey,' said Barnaby, 'we will carry Robin. This poor
woman must go too; she will else be hanged for trying to throttle
him. Well, she can lend a hand to carry Robin. Madam, by your
leave we will not hang, nor will we be shot. In the--in the--the
cave--cave that I know of, your bloodhounds will never find us.'
'Madam,' I said, 'it is true that we shall attempt to escape. For
what hath happened I am truly sorry; yet we may not suffer such a
thing as was this night attempted without resistance, else should we
be worse than the ignorant blacks. The Master will perhaps live, and
not die. Listen, and take heed therefore.'
'Doctor,' she said, 'do not leave me. Stay with me, or he will die.
Doctor, stay with me, and I will save your life. I will swear that
you came at my call. Stay with me--I will save Alice as well. I will
save you both. You shall be neither flogged nor hanged. I swear it.
I will say that I called you for help when it was too late. Only
this man and this woman shall hang. Who are they? A rogue and----'
Barnaby laughed aloud.
'Doctor,' she said, 'if you stay he will perhaps recover and forgive
you all.'
Barnaby laughed again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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