When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and ArbuthnotHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Science
When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories; Science fiction
I do not think he saw Bickley, indeed he shut his eyes again as though
the light hurt them, and went into a kind of faint. Then it was that
Tommy, who all this while had been watching the proceedings with grave
interest, came forward, wagging his tail, and licked the man’s face. At
the touch of the dog’s red tongue, he opened his eyes for the second
time. Now he saw—not us but Tommy, for after contemplating him for a
few seconds, something like a smile appeared upon his fierce but noble
face. More, he lifted his hand and laid it on the dog’s head, as though
to pat it kindly. Half a minute or so later his awakening senses
appreciated our presence. The incipient smile vanished and was replaced
by a somewhat terrible frown.
Meanwhile Bickley had poured out some of the hot coffee laced with
brandy into the cup that was screwed on the top of the thermos flask.
Advancing to the man whom I supported, he put it to his lips. He tasted
and made a wry face, but presently he began to sip, and ultimately
swallowed it all. The effect of the stimulant was wonderful, for in a
few minutes he came to life completely and was even able to sit up
without support.
For quite a long while he gazed at us gravely, taking us in and
everything connected with us. For instance, Bickley’s medicine-case
which lay open showing the little vulcanite tubes, a few instruments
and other outfit, engaged his particular attention, and I saw at once
that he understood what it was. Thus his arm still smarted where the
needle had been driven in and on the blanket lay the syringe. He looked
at his arm, then looked at the syringe, and nodded. The paraffin
hurricane lamps also seemed to interest and win his approval. We two
men, as I thought, attracted him least of all; he just summed us up and
our garments, more especially the garments, with a few shrewd glances,
and then seemed to turn his thoughts to Tommy, who had seated himself
quite contentedly at his side, evidently accepting him as a new
addition to our party.
I confess that this behaviour on Tommy’s part reassured me not a
little. I am a great believer in the instincts of animals, especially
of dogs, and I felt certain that if this man had not been in all
essentials human like ourselves, Tommy would not have tolerated him. In
the same way the sleeper’s clear liking for Tommy, at whom he looked
much oftener and with greater kindness than he did at us, suggested
that there was goodness in him somewhere, since although a dog in its
wonderful tolerance may love a bad person in whom it smells out hidden
virtue, no really bad person ever loved a dog, or, I may add, a child
or a flower.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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