“You are Henry Nicholas Reardon,” he said.

Lord Nick set his teeth.

“Now,” he said, “it is certain that you must die!”

But Donnegan cast out his arms and broke into a wild laughter.

“Oh, you fool, you fool!” he cried.  “Don’t you know me?  I am the cripple!”

32

The big man crossed the floor with one vast stride, and, seizing Donnegan by both shoulders, dragged him under the full light of the window; and still the crazy laughter shook Donnegan and made him helpless.

“They tied me to a board—­like a papoose,” said Donnegan, “and they straightened my back—­but they left me this way—­wizened up.”  He was stammering; hysterical, and the words tumbled from his lips in a jumble.  “That was a month after you ran away from home.  I was going to find you.  Got bigger.  Took the road.  Kept hunting.  Then I met a yegg who told about Rusty Dick—­described him like you—­I thought—­I thought you were dead!”

And the tears rolled down his face; he sobbed like a woman.

A strange thing happened then.  Lord Nick lifted the little man in his arms as if he were a child and literally carried him in that fashion to the bunk.  He put him down tenderly, still with one mighty arm around his back.

“You are Garry?  You!”

“Garrison Donnegan Reardon.  Aye, that’s what I am.  Henry, don’t say that you don’t know me!”

“But—­your back—­I thought—­”

“I know—­hopeless they said I was.  But they brought in a young doctor.  Now look at me.  Little.  I never grew big—­but hard, Henry, as leather!”

And he sprang to his feet.  And knowing that Donnegan had begun life as a cripple it was easy to appreciate certain things about his expression—­a cold wistfulness, and his manner of reading the minds of men.  Lord Nick was like a man in a dream.  He dragged Donnegan back to the bunk and forced him to sit down with the weight of his arms.  And he could not keep his hands from his younger brother.  As though he were blind and had to use the sense of touch to reassure him.

“I heard lies.  They said everybody was dead.  I thought—­”

“The fever killed them all, except me.  Uncle Toby took me in.  He was a devil.  Helped me along, but I left him when I could.  And—­”

“Don’t tell me any more.  All that matters is that I have you at last, Garry.  Heaven knows it’s a horrible thing to be kithless and kinless, but I have you now!  Ah, lad, but the old pain has left its mark on you.  Poor Garry!”

Donnegan shuddered.

“I’ve forgotten it.  Don’t bring it back.”

“I keep feeling that you should be in that chair.”

“I know.  But I’m not.  I’m hard as nails, I tell you.”

He leaped to his feet again.

“And not so small as you might think, Henry!”

“Oh, big enough, Garry.  Big enough to paralyze The Corner, from what I’ve heard.”