Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters [92]
“Don’t talk nonsense,” I replied brusquely. Harshness was the only proper response to the rising hysteria in the child’s voice. “Go and fetch my smelling salts. If they are as strong as I remember, they ought to bring Lucas to his senses. They almost deprived me of mine.”
Evelyn nodded. I could always command her by appealing to her sense of duty. As she turned, I was electrified by the first sign of life I had seen in my patient. His lips parted. In a low, sighing voice, he enunciated a single word.
“He calls your name,” I said to Evelyn, who had paused. “Come quickly; answer him.”
Evelyn knelt down by the bed. “Lucas,” she said. “Lucas, I am here. Speak to me.”
Lucas’s hand moved. It groped feebly. Evelyn put her hand on his; the fingers closed around hers and clung.
“Evelyn,” Lucas repeated. “My darling…”
“I am here,” Evelyn repeated. “Can you hear me, Lucas?”
The sick man’s head moved slightly. “So far away,” he murmured, in a failing voice. “Where are you, Evelyn? Don’t leave me. I am all alone in the dark….”
Evelyn leaned over him. “I won’t leave you, Lucas. Wake up, I implore you. Speak to us.”
“Take my hand. Don’t let me wander away. I am lost without you….”
This banal exchange continued for some time, with Lucas’s weak voice pleading and Evelyn reassuring him. I shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. I suspected that Lucas was now fully conscious. He was certainly not delirious in the ordinary sense of the word. Only congential stupidity could have produced such inane dialogue. Finally Lucas got to the point. His eyes were still closed.
“Don’t leave me,” he moaned. “Never leave me, my love, my hope. Promise you will never leave me.”
Evelyn was bending so close that her unbound hair brushed his cheek. Her face was transformed by pity, and I rather hated to disillusion her, but I was not sure what she might promise in the heat of her innocent enthusiasm. If she made a promise, she would keep it. And I was determined that matters should proceed according to the plan I had conceived. So I said briskly, “He is coming around now, Evelyn. Are you going to promise to marry him, or shall we try the smelling salts first?”
Evelyn sat back on her heels. Her face was flushed. Lucas opened his eyes.
“Evelyn,” he said slowly—but in his normal, deep tones, not the moaning whisper he had been using. “It is really you? I dreamed. God preserve me from any more such dreams!”
“Thank God,” Evelyn said sincerely. “How do you feel, Lucas? We were so frightened for you.”
“A little weak; otherwise, quite all right. It was your voice that brought me back, Evelyn; I seemed to be disembodied, lost and alone in a dark without a single spark of light. Then I heard you arrive and followed it as I would follow a beacon.”
“I am glad I could help you, Lucas.”
“You saved my life. Henceforth it is yours.”
Evelyn shook her head shyly. She was trying to free her hand; and after a moment Lucas let it go.
“Enough of this,” I interposed. “I am not so much interested in your dreams, Lucas, as I am in what produced them. What happened? I saw you stumble and fall, but I could swear the creature did not throw any missile.”
“Nothing struck me,” Lucas answered. “Nothing physical…. You found no bruise, no mark, I suppose?”
He glanced down at his bared chest. Blushing still more deeply, Evelyn got to her feet and retreated from the bed.
“There was no mark I could see,” I replied. “What did you feel?”
“Impossible to describe it! I can only imagine that a man struck by a bolt of lightning might have a similar sensation. First a shocking thrill, electrical in intensity; then utter weakness and unconsciousness.