Part 17 (2/2)
”We shouldn't have been gone so long. What's this did ye say, Poleski?
Well, 'tis the only thing I can do for her. After I left you I went and got these. They're great believers in herbs in this counthry, and by the light of what I have seen, so am I. The poor people never use anything else, and I've seen some fine cures. It's unprofessional, but it's giving her a chance and as I told you I can't operate.” He withdrew his fingers hurriedly.
”Faith, that jade with the dark eyes knew what she was doing when she made this water hot! They're ready now, and I'll want a piece of stuff to lay them on. Find me a piece of the colleen's finery, something old that she won't be wanting to use any more.”
He p.r.o.nounced the last two words as ”ANNIE MOORE,” and would have been furious if the fact had been pointed out to him, for like all Irishmen he would never admit the possession of a brogue.
A pale blue silk scarf was found, and ruthlessly utilised as a bandage.
Then Emile lifted the inert figure, while the doctor wound it round her throat and fastened it securely.
”Lift her higher, man,” he adjured Emile.
”There's only one pillow?--Then use this.” He rolled up his coat, and put it behind her head.
”We've done all we can now, and must just wait till this begins to draw. It will make her uncomfortable, and we must watch that she doesn't pull it off. Give me a cigarette if ye have one, Poleski.
'Tis hot work this.”
He sat down on the bed and took up Arith.e.l.li's thin wrist. In his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, with his hair well on end, and his robust voice very little subdued below its usual pitch, Michael did not convey the impression that he was capable of taking either Life or Death in a serious spirit. He talked on gaily, in no way depressed by his unsympathetic audience, telling tales of his own escapades in the matter of fighting and love-making, of wild midnight steeplechases ridden across unknown country, and the delights of the fair town by the river Lee.
Once he stopped talking for a few minutes to boil some more water on the stove that Arith.e.l.li sometimes used for making coffee, and to renew the application of leaves. The fact that his patient was in exactly the same condition of stupor, and had not stirred, did not discourage Michael's optimistic views of her recovery.
”Ye must give it time, me bhoy,” he told Emile. ”There's no hurry in Spain, ye know, with anything. Be careful that ye watch her and keep her hands off her throat. She'll not be lying so quiet presently.”
Emile growled out an inaudible response. He was in a smouldering condition of wrath and impatience. Reserved and limited of words as he himself always was, and now rendered savage by anxiety, he found it impossible to understand the other man's mercurial temperament. By this time he was without hope, and certainly without faith in either Michael or his remedies.
The doctor having skilfully extracted his crumpled outer garment from under Arith.e.l.li's shoulders, regretfully prepared to depart. He was obliged to be somewhere about the premises of the Hippodrome during every performance in case of accident to any of the animals, and careless as he was where his own benefit was concerned, he had sufficient wisdom to be always within call.
When he had vanished Emile walked to the window, and threw open the now useless shutters. He guessed instinctively that Arith.e.l.li needed more air, and he had himself begun to find the temperature almost unbearable, for the building was lofty, and the room they were in near the roof. He rested his folded arms upon the sill and leaned his head and shoulders far out.
The house stood at a corner, and while the side of it was in a small street, the front overlooked one of the many wide and beautiful _paseos_, with which the city abounded.
A little breeze borne of the incoming tide in the harbour came sweeping along, and its coolness stirred him into fresh vitality.
It was the hour of pleasure, when the inhabitants threw off their sun-begotten sloth and thronged the _cafes_ and public gardens and promenades.
On the Rambla, once the bed of a river, the military bands played waltz music, and the favourite operas, and hot blood moved faster to the unfailing enchantment of the Habernera, and the newest works of Ma.s.senet and Charpentier.
It was now dark, and the stars blazed down upon the never-resting city, with its sinister record of outrages and crimes, and its charm which was as the alluring of some wild gypsy queen.
Men fleeing from the justice or vengeance of their own country could find here a City of Refuge. Here the tide of life ran swiftly, and churches and cruelty walked hand in hand, and Hate trod close upon the heels of Love.
Here no man's life was safe, for from time to time an epidemic of bomb throwing would break out. Infernal machines would be hurled in an apparently purposeless fas.h.i.+on wherever there was a large gathering of people in street or square. A few policemen, soldiers, or onlookers would be killed or mutilated, and a panic created, but few arrests were ever made. The whole of the Press would unite to lift up its voice in an indignant appeal to the Government, and then everything would be forgotten till the next explosion. People in Barcelona lived from day to day and accepted lawlessness as a matter of course.
Emile's own particular circle had no hand in these promiscuous destructions of life. Their own attempts were invariably well organised and directed towards some definite end. They did not destroy life for mere wanton cruelty, and their victims were marked out and hunted down with an accurate aim.
It suddenly occurred to Emile that during the last few months he had looked upon Barcelona with a changed vision. He had always seen her beauties and hated them, as a man may hate the fair body of a despised mistress, while he yet sees it fair. Now the thought that he might at any time, and at a few days' notice, be forced to leave the place, struck him with a feeling of blankness and desolation.
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