The Mynns' Mystery Part 56

Yes, and I am strong too. Oh, if I had a knife!"

He panted out these words in a series of hoa.r.s.e cries; and all he while, as far as his hands would allow, he went through the movements of one having a desperate struggle with a great dog--fending off its efforts to get at his throat. Again clapping his hand to his arm with a moan of pain, and ending by striking at the animal which had attacked him blow after blow, to sink back looking hideously ghastly and perfectly exhausted by his efforts.

"Poor fellow!" said the lawyer, as the sick man lay with his eyes half closed. "How unlucky for the dog to spring at him. Seems to have completely shattered his brain."

"Yes," said the doctor gravely, as he held his patient's wrist.

"Terrible work, sir," continued the lawyer, looking at George Harrington, but the young man made no reply. He was staring thoughtfully at the wretched man, apparently waiting the moment when he must lean over the head of the sofa, and hold him down; but all the while following up a clue which his active imagination painted before him in vivid colours.

For, as he stood there, the wanderings of the delirious man's brain evoked a chain of ideas, and he saw farther than his two companions, who attributed the violence of the paroxysms to the shock caused by the dog's attack.

"The trouble must be farther back than that," he thought. "The dog had dashed at him as if for some former cause," and the incoherent panting words which he heard better than his companions at the feet could, he read as by the key suggested to his mind. Once started upon this track, all came very easily.

"There must have been some old encounter when the dog had attacked him.

His words suggested it all, even to the effect of the encounter. He had been bitten and--then--to be sure, there was that broken walking-stick!--he had retaliated with a blow of such savage violence that he believed he had killed the dog; and, of course, it was perfectly clear--the next time they met, and the poor brute had sufficiently recovered, it had dashed at him."

Saul Harrington's breath came in a low, stertorous way, as Mrs Hampton just then re-entered the room, and crept to her husband's side on tip-toe to whisper:

"Gertrude has gone herself. I'll go back and wait till she returns."

George Harrington felt a pang of disappointment as he asked himself why he had not gone, but the reason came to remind him, for as Mrs Hampton stole back to the door, Saul uttered a savage cry, and they had hard work to keep him down, as he threw his head from side to side, gnashing his teeth, snapping, and making a hideous, worrying sound, such as might come from a dog. For some moments no coherent words left his lips-- nothing but these terrible, low, hoa.r.s.e cries, and the doctor whispered from where he stood to George Harrington:

"For heaven's sake take care. If he bit you now, the consequences might be serious."

A shudder ran through the young man; but he forgot his own peril in the excitement of hearing the words which now came distinctly to strengthen his theory; as, with convulsed features, and eyes seeming to start as they watched something which the diseased brain had conjure: up, Saul panted savagely:

"Yes, you beast! I see you tracking and watching me. But keep off!

I'll kill you as I would a rat. Hah! Take him off--take him off! My arm! My arm! Don't you see! His teeth have met and he has torn a piece out. Ah! Down, beast, down! Hah! You had it that time! Curse you! You'll never do that again. Dead--dead--dead!"

He sank back once more in utter exhaustion, but his lips kept moving feebly, and a curious jerk from time to time sent a spasmodic action through his limbs.

"Yes, that must be it," thought George Harrington; "the dog had attacked him, and fastened upon his arm, and this injury, which he attributed to a fall on the Alps, was from the bite of the dog, which for some reason--of course so as not to hurt Gertrude's feelings--he wished to keep quiet. The reason was simple enough. He had struck and nearly killed the dog."

His musings were interrupted by a fresh paroxysm, so horrible that those who held the delirious man shuddered, and George Harrington felt a strange dread of the doctor's patient, as it seemed to him probable that this might be all the result of that bite--a form of hydrophobia--that horrible incurable disease which sets medicine knowledge at defiance, and laughs all remedies to scorn.

Saul Harrington's cries, curses and writhings once more subsided just as the great iron gate was heard to clang.

"Go, and fetch the medicine, Hampton," whispered the doctor, "and tell them it is impossible to take him away. A bed must be made up on the floor of the study."

"Yes. Quite right."

"And they must not come in here again. It is too horrible. Really it is not safe."

A fierce cry rang out at that moment, and Saul's strength seemed to be so superhuman that the broad fold of curtain which helped to keep him down parted, and, tossing aside the hands which tried to restrain him, he made for the door, which Gertrude opened.

George Harrington uttered a low cry, which sounded like a quick, sharp expiration of the breath, and leaped across the room to seize the wretched maniac as he was in the act of springing upon Gertrude, who shrank back against the door appalled by the hideous look upon his face.

Then began a terrific struggle, in which, for some time, no aid could be rendered.

No sound escaped Gertrude's lips, but she stood there white and trembling, as if fascinated by the horror of the scene, while Mrs Hampton held her by the arm with the intention of dragging her away, but only to be so paralysed by terror that she could not stir.

For a good five minutes nothing was heard in the room but the overturning and breaking of furniture, mingled with the hoa.r.s.e panting animal cries of Saul, who seemed to see in George Harrington the dog he sought to destroy.

In spite of all the others could do, matters went hard with George; but the dexterity of a man used to wild life stood him in good stead, and just as in the midst of a savage, snarling sound Gertrude felt the room swimming round her, and as if insensibility was coming on, there was a heavy crash, and the shock brought her back to life.

George Harrington was seated upon Saul's chest, as he said in a panting voice:

"Now, doctor, quick! Give him what you have. I can't hold him long.

About beat out."

The next minute the doctor was on his knees beside the wretched man, seizing any opportunity to trickle a few drops of the strong sedative between the gnashing teeth--a dangerous and difficult task--till a goodly portion had been swallowed as well as scattered over the carpet, and then Saul lay staring and muttering something about the dog.

"I've exhibited a tremendous dose," whispered Doctor Lawrence, as he recorked the bottle. "That must calm him for a time."

But quite a quarter of an hour pa.s.sed before Saul sank into a state of stupor; and then after he had been replaced upon the couch, it was wheeled into the study, a more secure bandage placed across his heaving chest; and the exhausted party sat down to watch.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

MR HAMPTON'S RECIPE.

Doctor Lawrence's first action on getting his patient quieted down, was to telegraph off to town for a colleague, and an attendant from the asylum of a friend; but it was too late to expect a.s.sistance that night, and so as to be prepared in case of another terrible scene, the gardener's aid was called in, the man willingly offering to help and sit up with the doctor, to watch.

"You will stay, too, Mr Harrington?" said Mrs Hampton. "Gertrude, my dear, why do you not speak?"

The poor girl gave her old friend a reproachful look, which spoke volumes.

"I should have offered to stay," said George, "but I felt a delicacy about so doing, and it seemed as if I should be forcing my presence here."

"If in this time of terrible distress and anxiety," said Gertrude with quiet dignity, "Mr George Harrington will stay and help us, we shall be most grateful."

"I can't make a pretty speech in return for that, Miss Bellwood," he replied, "but you know how much more comfortable I shall be to know that you are all safe."

"It will be trespa.s.sing sadly upon you," said Gertrude, in formal tones.

"Yes, terribly," he said drily. "But it suits me exactly, for I want to sit down and think."

He had plenty of time for thought during the long hours of that painful night. The ladies ostensibly went off to bed, while the gentlemen occupied the dining-room, the doctor rising from time to time to go in to see his patient, who lay in a complete stupor--overcome for the time being by the potency of the medicine which had been administered.

It was a slow, dreary watch, for all were more or less exhausted by the struggle which they had had, but no one complained, and three o'clock had arrived when, on going once more into the study, the doctor found that the gardener was nodding.

"You will have to go and lie down, my man," said the doctor coldly.

"Beg pardon, sir; very sorry," said the man apologetically. "Bit drowsy, but if you'd stop here a quarter of an hour while I go and walk round the yard and garden, kill a few slugs, and have a quiet pipe, I shall come back as fresh as a daisy."

"Very well, my man, go; but tell the gentlemen in the dining-room first."

The gardener went out into the kitchen, filled his pipe, took the matches from the chimney-piece, and went out, telling himself that this were the rummest start he knew, and wondering what master would say if he came back and found Mr Saul ill there.