He did not sense the fact of human
presence; nor that the divan had been changed into a bed and the
four lamps lighted, and that wrinkled, brown hands with talon-like
fingers were performing a miracle of wilderness surgery upon him.
He did not see the age-old face of Nepapinas--"The Wandering Bolt
of Lightning"--as the bent and tottering Cree called upon all his
eighty years of experience to bring him back to life. And he did
not see Bateese, stolid-faced, silent, nor the dead-white face and
wide-open, staring eyes of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as her slim,
white fingers worked with the old medicine man's. He was in a gulf
of blackness that writhed with the spirits of torment. He fought
them and cried out against them, and his fighting and his cries
brought the look of death itself into the eyes of the girl who was
over him. He did not hear her voice nor feel the soothing of her
hands, nor the powerful grip of Bateese as he held him when the
critical moments came. And Nepapinas, like a machine that had
looked upon death a thousand times, gave no rest to his claw-like
fingers until the work was done--and it was then that something
came to drive the arrow-shooting devils out of the darkness that
was smothering Carrigan.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80