Sir George Tressady — Volume II by Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920

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Hours passed. At last in George's numbed brain there was a faint stir of consciousness. He opened his eyes slowly.

Oh, horror! oh, cruelty! to come back from merciful nothingness and peace to this burning anguish, not to be borne, of body and mind. "I had died," he thought--"it was done with," and a wild, impotent rage, as against some brutality done him, surged through him.

A little later he made a first slight movement, which was answered at once by another movement on the part of a man sitting near him. The man bent over him in the darkness and felt for his pulse.

"Burrows!" The whisper was just perceptible.

"Yes, Sir George."

"What has happened? Where is Macgregor? Give me some brandy--there, in my inner pocket."

"No; I have it. Can you swallow it? I have tried several times before, but your mouth was set--it ran down my fingers."

"Give it me."

Their fingers met, George feeling for the flask. As he moved his arm a groan of anguish broke from him.

"Drink it--if you possibly can."

George put all the power of his being into the effort to swallow a few drops. Still the anguish! "O God, my back! and the legs--paralysed!"

The words were only spoken in the brain, but it seemed to him that he cried them aloud. For a moment or two the mind swam again; then the brandy began to sting.

He slid down a hand slowly, defying the pain it caused him, to feel his right leg. The trouser round the thigh hung in ribbons, but the fragments lying on the flesh were caked and hard; and beneath him was a pool. His reason worked with difficulty, but clearly. "Some bad injury to the thigh," he thought. "Much bleeding--probably the bleeding has dulled the worst pain. The back and shoulders burnt--"

Then, in the same hesitating, difficult way he managed to lift his hand to his head, which ached intolerably. The right temple and the hair upon it were also caked and wet.

He let his hand drop. "How long have I--?" he thought. For already his revived consciousness could hardly maintain itself; something from the black tunnels of the mine seemed to be perpetually pressing out upon it, threatening to drown it like a flood.

"Burrows!"--he felt again with his hand--"where's Macgregor?"

A sob broke from the darkness beside him.

"Crushed in an instant. I heard one cry. Why not we, too?"

"It was such a bad fall?"

"The whole mine seemed to come down." George felt the shudder of the huge frame. "I escaped; you must have been caught by some of it. Macgregor was right underneath it. But there was an explosion besides."

"Macgregor's lamp? Broken?" whispered George, after a pause.

"Possibly. It couldn't have been much, or we should have been killed instantly. I was only stunned--a bit scorched, too--not badly. You're the lucky one. I shall die by inches."

"Cheer up!" said George, faintly. "I can't last--but they'll find you."

"What chance for either of us," said Burrows, groaning. "The return must be blocked, too, or they'd have got round to us by now."

"How long--"

"God knows! To judge by the time I've been sitting--since I got you here--it's night long ago."