Part 46 (1/2)

”Yes. He's in there!” Peter concluded, nodding toward the operating-room.

”Yes!” she murmured. ”It's too awful!”

She, too, was silent, taking her cue from his evident desire. As she paced beside him she had an atmospheric feeling of the power of the man as something absolute and indomitable, centred on fighting with his will for a decision in favour of Phil. He made talk of any kind seem petty.

When the door of the operating-room opened they heard its swing, noiseless as were its hinges. Dr. and Mrs. Sanford rose mechanically in answer to that signal; the others turned in their tracks. As Bricktop appeared in the doorway two pairs of old eyes saw him indistinctly through a swimming haze. They were going to learn now if Phil would ever be to their sight as he was before, or---- Bricktop's round face drawn with effort lighted with a smile, as he held up his hand.

”You've done it! By G.o.d, you've done it, Bricktop!” Peter cried, rus.h.i.+ng toward him.

”Right!” said Bricktop. ”Unless there is some setback in the next two or three days. I don't think there will be. Expect to make him as good as new, only a few little scars!”

Two pairs of old eyes still saw that red head like a sun through a fog, but they had heard his words. They did not cry out; their only demonstration was to clasp hands. Helen could not speak, only look at Bricktop with glorious wonder in her eyes, which he was quick to see.

”We beat the Boches to it, eh?” he said to her.

Peter, too, had become silent in his inexpressible happiness, after he had wrung Bricktop's hand.

”If now he should recover his sight!” Henriette exclaimed abstractedly, her words apparently the beginning of a train of thought too rapid to be expressed in speech.

”He will!” said Helen and Peter together.

Phil was being wheeled from the operating-room back to the ward.

Bricktop beckoned the waiting group to come in; then bade them pause at the door until Phil was transferred from his carriage to the bed. The nurse said that he had recovered consciousness, though there was no sign of it in his motionless form.

”You tell him!” said Bricktop to Helen.

”Bricktop has done it! You win!” she wrote on his arm.

Many days awaited him, with the pain devils in their last big dance, but with every day meaning less torture. His hearing had become distinct enough to perceive an ordinary conversation around his chair as a faint hum. The silver harness still clinched his jaw and the bandages were still over his eyes.

”Quite as he was before--only a few scars,” Bricktop, whom Henriette had met coming out of his office, said in answer to her inquiry when she was on her way to Phil.

Mr. Eyes happened to be coming along the path at the time. Henriette joined him and together they crossed the court.

”What hope?” she asked. She put the question to him with increased fervour every time that she saw him; and of late she had chanced to see him frequently.

”I am going to change the bandages,” he replied.

Sometimes the great man had doubts about the system of bandages, which nine out of ten specialists would not have favoured, perhaps; but when he considered an operation he fell back on them as the only way.

Sh.e.l.l-shock was baffling, freakish, in its results, and the truth was that he was groping in professional darkness to save Phil from eternal darkness. Yesterday he had strengthened the application. A matter of daily routine the change of the bandages. It brought him every afternoon to the ward and always Helen was there to receive him, the same look of confident antic.i.p.ation in her eyes, as yet unfulfilled.

He pressed his hand on Phil's forehead, and this Phil had long ago come to recognise as Mr. Eyes' private signal which preceded the removal of the bandages. He was particularly welcome to-day, as Phil had had a kind of restless sensation back of his eyeb.a.l.l.s. As the medicated pad was withdrawn, a gurgling outcry rose from his throat and he leaned convulsively forward, fingers outstretched, opening and closing as if he were trying to grasp at a reality that might escape.

”It's not true! Imagination again!” snarled the pain devils; but they could not deceive him about this.

Light had come into his black night, soft, dreamy, vague, amazing light--just light, light, light! There were no people in it, no houses, no trees, only light which seemed like silver gauze hung before his eyes and yet to stretch to the ends of the world. It had brought something dead to life as by miracle, with a touch as soft as eiderdown, sending little thrills knitting in and out all through him.

Light for the first time since he had heard that hurtling scream of the sh.e.l.l! Light was in his brain, his veins, his tissue, singing and frolicking as it opened the doors of dark places. He wanted to embrace it, fondle it, run it through his fingers with a miser's greed of gold and gather a store of it while he might. Out of the light, as if traced by the hand of light, a message was being traced on his arm.

”What is it, Phil?” Helen asked him.