Wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that, unless he had resolved that I was within a few moments of surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he would never have told me what he had told.
Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed it away.
Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet.
He swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at me no more.
The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up.
Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle.
The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and struggled with all my might.
It was only my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was within me.
In the same instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the night.
After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the same place, with my head on some one's knee.
My eyes were fixed on the ladder against the wall, when I came to myself,—had opened on it before my mind saw it,—and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I was in the place where I had lost it.
Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came between me and it a face.
The face of Trabb's boy!
"I think he's all right!" said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice; "but ain't he just pale though!"
At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine, and I saw my supporter to be—
"Herbert!
Great Heaven!"
"Softly," said Herbert.
"Gently, Handel.
Don't be too eager."
"And our old comrade, Startop!" I cried, as he too bent over me.
"Remember what he is going to assist us in," said Herbert, "and be calm."
The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the pain in my arm.
"The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it?
What night is to-night?
How long have I been here?"
For, I had a strange and strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time—a day and a night,—two days and nights,—more.
"The time has not gone by.
It is still Monday night."
"Thank God!"
"And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in," said Herbert.
"But you can't help groaning, my dear Handel.
What hurt have you got?
Can you stand?"
"Yes, yes," said I,
"I can walk.
I have no hurt but in this throbbing arm."
They laid it bare, and did what they could.
It was violently swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched.
But, they tore up their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling, until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put upon it.
In a little while we had shut the door of the dark and empty sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our way back.
Trabb's boy—Trabb's overgrown young man now—went before us with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door.
But, the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky, and the night, though rainy, was much lighter.
The white vapor of the kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now.
Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,—which at first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining quiet,—I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had met in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I was gone.
Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him.
His uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an hour's consideration, he set off for the coach-office with Startop, who volunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went down.
Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he resolved to follow in a post-chaise.
So he and Startop arrived at the Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but, finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me.
Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when I was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes.