Joan Haste - H. Rider Haggard (fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

above his elbows,

revealing a pair of very powerful and fair-skinned arms.

 

“Please don’t—please!” implored Joan from below.

 

“I am not going to give in now,” he answered; and, grasping a firm and

projecting stone with his right hand, he set his foot upon a second

fragment and began the ascent of the broken wall. Soon he reached the

head of the slope in safety, but only to be encountered by another

difficulty. The window slit containing the jackdaws’ nest was round

the corner, a little above him on the surface of the wall, and it

proved impossible to reach it from where he stood. Very cautiously he

bent to one side and looked round the angle of the masonry. Close to

him a strong stem of ivy grew up the tower, dividing into two branches

some five feet below the nest. He knew that it would be dangerous to

trust his weight to it, and still more dangerous to attempt the

turning of the corner; but at this moment he was more set upon getting

the young birds which this village beauty desired, than on his own

safety or any other earthly thing. Henry Graves was a man who disliked

being beaten.

 

Very swiftly he shifted his hold, and, stretching out his left hand,

he felt about until it gripped the ivy stem. Now he must go on.

Exactly how it happened would be difficult to describe on paper, but

in two more seconds his foot was in the fork of ivy and his face was

opposite to the window slit containing the nest.

 

“I can see the young ones,” he said. “I will throw them out, and you

must catch them in your hat, for I can’t carry them.”

 

“Oh! pray take care,” gasped Joan.

 

He laughed by way of answer; and next second, with loud squawks and an

impotent flapping of untried wings, a callow jackdaw was launched upon

its first flight, to be deftly caught in Joan’s broad hat before it

touched the earth. A second followed, then another, and another. The

last bird was the strongest of the four, and flew some yards in its

descent. Joan ran to catch it—a process that took a little time, for

it lay upon its back behind a broken tombstone, and pecked at her hand

in a fashion necessitating its envelopment in her handkerchief. Just

as she secured it she heard Captain Graves say: “That’s the lot. Now I

am coming down.”

 

Next instant there was a sound as of something being torn. Joan looked

up, to see him hanging by one arm against the sheer face of the tower.

In attempting to repass the corner Henry’s foot had slipped, throwing

all his weight on to the stem of ivy which he held; but it was not

equal to the strain, and a slab of it had come away from the wall. To

this ivy he clung desperately, striving to find foothold with his

heels, his face towards her, for he had swung round. Uttering a low

cry of fear, Joan sped back to the tower like a swallow. She knew that

he must fall; but that was not the worst of it, for almost

immediately beneath where he hung stood a raised tomb shaped like a

stone coffin, having its top set thickly with rusted iron spikes,

three inches or more in length, especially designed to prevent the

idle youth of all generations from seating themselves upon this home

of the dead.

 

If he struck upon these!

 

Joan rushed round the spiked tomb, and halted almost, but not quite,

beneath Henry’s hanging shape. His eyes fell upon her agonised and

upturned face.

 

“Stand clear! I am coming,” he said in a low voice.

 

Watching, she saw the muscles of his arm work convulsively. Then the

rough stem of ivy began to slip through his clenched fingers. Another

second, and he dropped like a stone from a height of twenty feet or

more. Instinctively Joan stretched out her arms as though to catch

him; but he struck the ground legs first just in front of her, and,

with a sharp exclamation, pitched forward against her.

 

The shock was tremendous. Joan saw it coming, and prepared to meet it

as well as she might by bending her body forward, since, at all

hazards, he must be prevented from falling face foremost on the spiked

tomb, there to be impaled. His brow cut her lip almost through, his

shoulder struck her bosom, knocking the breath out of her, then her

strong arms closed around him like a vice, and down they went

together.

 

All this while her mind remained clear. She knew that she must not

go down backwards, or the fate from which she strove to protect him

would overtake her—the iron spikes would pierce her back and brain.

By a desperate effort she altered the direction of their fall,

trusting to come to earth alongside the tomb. But she could not quite

clear it, as a sudden pang in the right shoulder told her. For a

moment they lay on the edge of the tomb, then rolled free. Captain

Graves fell undermost, his head striking with some violence on a

stone, and he lay still, as did Joan for nearly a minute, since her

breath was gone.

 

Presently the pain of breathlessness passed a little, and she began to

recover. Glancing at her arm, she saw that a stream of blood trickled

along her sleeve, and blood from her cut lips was falling on the bosom

of her dress and upon the forehead of Henry Graves beneath her,

staining his white face.

 

“Oh, he is dead!” mourned Joan aloud; “and it is my fault.”

 

At this moment Henry opened his eyes. Apparently he had overheard her,

for he answered: “Don’t distress yourself: I am all right.”

 

As he spoke, he tried to move his leg, with the result that a groan of

agony broke from him. Glancing at the limb, Joan saw that it was

twisted beneath him in a fashion so unnatural that it became evident

even to her inexperience that it must be broken. At this discovery her

distress overpowered her to so great an extent that she burst into

tears.

 

“Oh! your leg is broken,” she sobbed. “What shall I do?”

 

“I think,” he whispered, with a ghastly smile, biting his lips to keep

back any further expression of his pain, “that you will find a flask

in my coat pocket, if you do not mind getting it.”

 

Joan rose from her knees, and going to the coat, which lay hard by,

took from it a little silver flask of whiskey-and-water; then,

returning, she placed one arm beneath the injured man’s head and with

the other contrived to pour some of the liquid down his throat.

 

“Thank you,” he said: “I feel better”; then suddenly fainted away.

 

In great alarm she poured some more of the spirit down his throat; for

now a new terror had taken her that he might be suffering from

internal injuries also. To her relief, he came to himself again, and

caught sight of the red stain growing upon her white dress.

 

“You are hurt,” he said. “What a selfish fellow I am, thinking only of

myself!”

 

“Oh, don’t think of me,” Joan answered: “it is nothing—a mere

scratch. What is to be done? How can I get you from here? Nobody lives

about, and we are a long way from Bradmouth.”

 

“There is my horse,” he murmured, “but I fear that I cannot ride him.”

 

“I will go,” said Joan; “yet how can I leave you by yourself?”

 

“I shall get on for a while,” Henry answered. “It is very good of

you.”

 

Then, since there was no help for it, Joan rose, and running to where

the horse was tied, she loosed it. But now a new difficulty confronted

her; her wounded arm was already helpless and painful, and without its

aid she could not manage to climb into the saddle, for the cob,

although a quiet animal enough, was not accustomed to a woman’s

skirts, and at every effort shifted itself a foot or two away from

her. At length, Joan, crying with pain, grief and vexation, determined

to abandon the attempt and to set out for Bradmouth on foot, when for

the first time fortune favoured her in the person of a red-haired lad

whom she knew well, and who was returning homewards from an expedition

in search of the eggs of wildfowl.

 

“Oh! Willie Hood,” she cried, “come and help me. A gentleman has

fallen from the tower yonder and broken his leg. Now do you get on

this horse and ride as hard as you can to Dr. Child’s, and tell him

that he must come out here with some men, and a door or something to

carry him on. Mind you say his leg is broken, and that he must bring

things to tie it up with. Do you understand?”

 

“Why you’re all bloody!” answered the boy, whose face betrayed his

bewilderment; “and I never did ride a horse in my life.”

 

“Yes, yes, I am hurt too; but don’t think of that. You get on to him,

and you’ll be safe enough. Why, surely you’re not afraid, Willie

Hood?”

 

“Afraid? No, I aren’t afraid,” answered the boy, colouring, “only I

like my legs better than his’n, that’s all. Here goes.” And with a

prodigious and scuffling effort Willie landed himself on the back of

the astonished cob.

 

“Stop,” said Joan; “you know what to say?”

 

“Yes,” he answered proudly; “don’t you fret—I know right enough. I’ll

bring the doctor back myself.”

 

“No, Willie: you go on to the Crown and Mitre, and tell my aunt that a

gentleman, Captain Graves of Rosham, has hurt himself badly, and that

she must get a room ready for him. It had best be mine, for it’s the

nicest,” she added, “and there is nowhere else that he can go.”

 

Willie nodded, and with a loud “gee-up” to the horse, started on his

journey, his legs hanging clear of the stirrups, and gripping the

pommel of the saddle with his right hand.

 

Having watched him disappear, Joan returned to where the wounded man

lay. His eyes were shut, but apparently he heard her come, for

presently he opened them.

 

“What, back so soon?” he said; “I must have been asleep.”

 

“No, no: I could not leave you. I found a boy and sent him on the

horse for the doctor. I only trust that he may get there safely,” she

added to herself.

 

“Very well: I am glad you have come back,” he said faintly. “I am

afraid that I am giving you a great deal of trouble, but do you mind

rubbing my hand? It feels so cold.”

 

She sat down on the grass beside him, having first wrapped his coat

round him as best she could, and began to chafe his hand. Presently

the pain, which had subsided for a while, set in more sharply than

ever, and his fingers, that had been like ice, were now burning hot.

Another half-hour passed, while the shadows lengthened and the evening

waned, and Henry’s speech became incoherent. He fancied himself on

board a man-of-war, and uttered words of command; he talked of foreign

countries, and mentioned many names, among them one that was not

strange to Joan’s ears—that of Emma Levinger; lastly even he spoke of

herself:

 

“What a lovely girl!” he muttered. “It’s worth risking one’s neck to

please her. Worth risking one’s neck to please her!”

 

A third half-hour passed; the fever lessened, and he grew silent. Then

the