I was in the depths of self-abasement when I heard a sound behind
me. It was a long breath, quite audible, that ended in a groan. I
gripped the parapet and listened, while my heart pounded, and in
a minute it came again.
I was terribly frightened. Then--I don't know how I did it, but I
was across the roof, kneeling beside the tent, where it stood
against the chimney. And there, lying prone among the flower
pots, and almost entirely hidden, lay the man we had been looking
for.
His head was toward me, and I reached out shakingly and touched
his face. It was cold, and my hand, when I drew it back, was
covered with blood.
Chapter XXII. IT WAS DELIRIUM
I was sure he was dead. He did not move, and when I caught his
hands and called him frantically, he did not hear me. And so,
with the horror over me, I half fell down the stairs and roused
Jim in the studio.
They all came with lights and blankets, and they carried him into
the tent and put him on the couch and tried to put whisky in his
mouth. But he could not swallow. And the silence became more and
more ominous until finally Anne got hysterical and cried, "He is
dead! Dead!" and collapsed on the roof.
But he was not. Just as the lights in the tent began to have red
rings around them and Jim's voice came from away across the
river, somebody said, "There, he swallowed that," and soon after,
he opened his eyes.
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