He inflated the bellows, and inserted the tube very carefully; then he discharged the air, then gently sucked it back again. When he had done this several times something like a sigh escaped from Jael's breast. The doctor removed the bellows, and felt her heart and examined her eyes. "Curious!" said he. "Give me some brandy.
It is more like syncope than drowning."
Acting on this notion, he laid her flat on her back, and applied neat brandy to her nostrils and ears.
After a while she moved her whole body like a wounded snake, and moaned feebly.
Raby uttered a loud shout of joy. "She is saved!" he cried. "She is saved!" He jumped about the room like a boy, and, anxious to do something or other, was for ringing up the female servants. But Amboyne would not hear of it. "On the contrary," said he, "lock the door, and let only you and I see the poor girl's distress when she comes back to this bitter world. Raby, don't you shut your eyes to the truth. This was no accident."
"I am afraid not," said Raby. "She knows the water as well as I do, and she picked out the deepest hole: poor girl! poor girl" He then asked Amboyne in a whisper what he thought she would do when she came to her senses.
"Impossible to say. She may be violent, and if so we shall have enough to do to hold her. They tell me she threw that workman like a sack."
At this moment Jael stretched her great arms and sighed. The movement, though gentle and feminine, had a grandeur and freedom that only goes with power.
The doctor lowered his voice to a whisper. "She is a good Christian, and most likely she will be penitent, and then she will cry her heart out. Any way, she is pretty sure to be hysterical, so mind and be firm as well as kind. There, her color is coming back.
Now put yourself in her place. You and I must call this an accident. Stick to that through thick and thin. Ah, she is coming round safe. She shall see you first. You take her right hand, and look at her with all the pity and kindness I am sure you feel."
Mr. Raby took Jael's hand in both his, and fixed his eyes on her with pity and anxiety.
She came to her senses, and stared at him a long time.
Then she looked down at her wet clothes. Then she snatched her hand away, and covered her face with both hands, and began to rock and moan, and finally turned round and hid her face against the very floor as if she would grovel and burrow into it.
"Are you better, my dear?" said the doctor, quietly.
No reply. And the face still crushed against the floor.
"The next time you faint away, don't let it be on the banks of a river. You have been going too long without food; and you fainted away and fell into the river. Luckily it was not very deep or it might have been serious. You have given us a fine fright, I can tell you."
While these words were being uttered, Jael, who did not miss a syllable, began to look very, very slowly round with scared and troubled eyes, and to defend herself. "I remember naught," said she, doggedly. Who took me out?"
"Mr. Raby."
She looked timidly at him, and saw his wet clothes.
"Oh, squire, why did you spoil your clothes for me?" and she laid her head on his knee and began to cry.