She sprang to her feet at the command of her purpose. From the torn wound, little red drops were arising like bubbles one by one--the drops of his life. She dressed the wound carefully. A great weariness fell about her like a pall; she sat down at the head of the bed. Something soft and delicious entered her soul.
She remained there till dawn, a sweet content singing at her heart. The oppression of Things that had crushed her for so many months had lifted; her being distended in ecstatic repose. He slept, still in the torpor of exhaustion, calm like a statue; she watched him, watched the white forehead with the black curls damp upon it, the eyes, closed in the shadow of the long lashes; watched this helplessness with a gentle feeling of maternal possession. His features were relaxed in lassitude; the corners of the mouth drew down slightly, in an expression a little tremulous, as that of a child who has cried and is not yet quite consoled. A great tenderness dissolved her being.
Toward morning, however, his cheeks flushed dull red and he began to toss restlessly upon the narrow couch. She placed her hand upon his forehead and found it burning. She redressed the wound, placed fresh bandages about the shoulder; but the fever did not abate. All day she fought it, handicapped by her poverty of means. And then as the sun had set in black-and-blood-portent and the night fell like a great velvet cloak from the sky, Fear crept into the little hut; and all night as she sat there by the cot, it was at her elbow, spectral, dilated-eyed, and cold.
He tossed and tossed in convulsive starts till the cane bed creaked and cried. He muttered incessantly, words without end, rapid as the tick of a telegraphic receiver. At times she could understand.
"The silence!" he would say; "the silence!"
He stopped a moment, his brows frowned, then the words came again, slow, as in painful mental analysis. "Their ways are different," he said; "their language incomprehensible. It is silence--God, what silence!"
He rose to a sitting posture and listened long, intently. "Nothing," he said, falling back, discouraged; "silence," he whispered.
Then, "And the mountain, the musty mountain, how it weighs!"
He was quiet for a long while. Then he spoke one word.