An accident Marcos recovered consciousness
at daybreak. It was a sign of his great strength
and perfect health that he regained all his faculties
at once. He moved, opened his eyes, and was fully
conscious, like a child awakening from sleep.
As soon as his eyes were open they showed surprise;
for Juanita was sitting beside him, watching him.
“Ah!” she said, and rose at once to give
him some medicine that stood ready in a glass.
She glanced at the clock as she did so. The room
had been rearranged. It was orderly and simple
like a hospital ward.
“Do not try to lift your head,” she said.
“I will do that for you.”
She did it with skill and laid him back again with
a gay laugh.
“There,” she said. “There is
one thing, and one only, that they teach in covents.”
As she spoke she turned to write on a sheet of paper
the exact hour and minute at which he recovered consciousness.
For her knowledge was fresh enough in her mind to
be half mechanical in its result.
“Will that drug make me sleep?” asked
Marcos, alertly.
“Yes.”
“How soon?”
“That depends upon how stale the little apothecary’s
stock-in-trade may be,” answered Juanita.
“Probably a quarter of an hour. He is a
queer little man and unwashed. But he set your
collar-bone like an angel. You have to do nothing
but keep quiet. I fancy you will have to be content
with a quiet seat in the background for some weeks,
amigo mio.”
She busied herself as she spoke, with some duties
of a sick-nurse which had been postponed during his
unconsciousness.
“It is nearly six o’clock,” she
said, without appearing to look in his direction.
“So you need not try to peep round the corner
at the clock. Please do not manage things, Marcos.
It is I who am manager of this affair. You and
Uncle Ramon think that I am a child. I am not.
I have grown up—in a night, like a mushroom,
and Uncle Ramon has been sent to bed.”
She came and sat down at the bedside again.
“And Cousin Peligros has not been disturbed.
She has not left her room. She will tell us to-morrow
morning that she scarcely slept at all. A real
lady never sleeps well, you know. She must have
heard us but she did not come out of her room.
For which we may thank the Saints. There are some
people one would rather not have in an emergency.
In fact, when you come to think of it—how
many are there in the world whose presence would be
of the slightest use in a crisis—one or
two at the most.”
She held up her finger to emphasise the smallness
of this number, and withdrew it again, hastily.
But she was not quick enough, for Marcos had seen
the ring and his eyes suddenly brightened. She
turned away towards the window, holding her lip between
her teeth, as if she had committed an indiscretion.
She had been talking against time slowly and continuously
to prevent his talking or thinking, to give the apothecary’s
soothing drug time to take effect. For the little
man of medicine had spoken very clearly of concussion
and its after-effects. He had posted off to Pampeluna
to fetch a doctor from there, leaving instructions
that should Marcos recover his reason he should not
be permitted to make use of it.
