The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [153]
When I recovered my senses I felt someone’s arms holding me. They were not Emerson’s; blinking blurrily, I saw him standing nearby, with his back turned.
“It is all over, dearest Amelia,” said Cyrus, pressing me closer. “Over, and safe, thank God.”
“Excellent,” I said, and fainted again.
The next time I woke I did not need to look to know who carried me cradled in his arms. I had been unconscious for some time, for when I opened my eyes I saw palm fronds overhead. A chicken squawked and flapped. Emerson must have kicked it aside. That was not like him, he usually stepped over them.
“Awake, are you?” he inquired, as I stirred feebly. “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on behaving in a womanly fashion.”
I turned my head and looked up at him. Perspiration had run down his cheeks and dried, leaving tracks through the dust that smeared them. “You may put me down now,” I said. “I can walk.”
“Oh, don’t be an ass, Peabody,” was the irritable reply.
“Let me take her,” pleaded Cyrus, close at hand as always.
“Not necessary. We are almost there.”
“How do you feel, my dear?” Cyrus asked.
“Quite well,” I murmured. “Well, but rather odd. My head seems to be disconnected from the rest of me. Make sure it doesn’t float away, Cyrus. It is so useful, you know. For putting one’s hat onto.”
“She is delirious,” Cyrus said anxiously.
“She is dead drunk,” said Emerson. “Interesting sensation, is it not, Peabody?”
“Yes, indeed. I had no idea.”
I was about to go on, explaining some of the effects I was experiencing, when I heard the sound of running feet and a voice cried out, “Emerson! O Father of Curses, wait for me! It is well. The dog was not mad. She is safe, she will not die!”
Emerson’s arms squeezed like a vise and then relaxed. He turned, and I saw Abdullah hurrying toward us, waving his arms. He was grinning from ear to ear and every few steps he gave an absurd little hop, like a child skipping.
We had reached the center of the village. The procession that had followed us from the cultivation—men and women, children, chickens and goats—gathered around. Life in these villages is very dull. Any excitement draws a crowd.
“Well?” said Emerson coolly, as his foreman came panting up.
“There had been a stick wedged in its jaws to hold its mouth open,” Abdullah gasped. “The fragments pierced deep when the stick finally broke. And this”—he displayed a filthy, blood-stiffened length of tattered cord—“tied tightly around its—”
“Never mind,” said Emerson, glancing at me.
“How horrible!” I exclaimed. “The poor creature! Just let me lay my hands on that villain and I will—oh, dear. Oh, dear, suddenly I don’t feel at all well. Wrath, I expect, has weakened my… Emerson, you had better put me down immediately.”
Though I felt a great deal better afterward, I found to my distress that I could not stand upright. It was not my foot that prevented this, though it hurt like the devil, but the fact that my knees kept bending at odd angles. I would not have supposed that the anatomy of the knee permitted such flexibility.
“Not such an enjoyable experience as you thought, was it?” said Emerson. “And the worst is yet to come. If you think your head aches now, wait till tomorrow morning.”
He looked so handsome, his eyes bright blue with amused malice, his hair waving damply back from his brow and his stalwart frame attired in clean if rumpled garments, I could not even resent the amusement. Someone had replaced the dirty bandage; I presumed it had been Bertha. She had tended me as deftly and gently as a trained nurse, helping me strip off my filthy clothes—for my hands did not seem to function any better than my knees—and attend to the other elements of the toilette. Cyrus had been waiting to carry me to the saloon, where we were now assembled, refreshing the inner man (and woman) as the outer had been refreshed. It was certainly a more presentable group than the crew of weary, work-stained, agitated individuals who had stumbled onto the boat.
Arranging my skirts, I settled back