fectly motionless, and the time
seemed long to Adam. Good God! had the blow been too much for him? Adam
shuddered at the thought of his own strength, as with the oncoming of
this dread he knelt down by Arthur's side and lifted his head from among
the fern. There was no sign of life: the eyes and teeth were set. The
horror that rushed over Adam completely mastered him, and forced upon
him its own belief. He could feel nothing but that death was in Arthur's
face, and that he was helpless before it. He made not a single movement,
but knelt like an image of despair gazing at an image of death.

Chapter XXVIII

A Dilemma

IT was only a few minutes measured by the clock--though Adam always
thought it had been a long while--before he perceived a gleam of
consciousness in Arthur's face and a slight shiver through his frame.
The intense joy that flooded his soul brought back some of the old
affection with it.

"Do you feel any pain, sir?" he said, tenderly, loosening Arthur's
cravat.

Arthur turned his eyes on Adam with a vague stare which gave way to a
slightly startled motion as if from the shock of returning memory. But
he only shivered again and said nothing.

"Do you feel any hurt, sir?" Adam said again, with a trembling in his
voice.

Arthur put his hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had
unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath. "Lay my head down," he said,
faintly, "and get me some water if you can."

Adam laid the head down gently on the fern again, and emptying the tools
out of the flag-basket, hurried through the trees to the edge of the
Grove bordering on the Chase, where a brook ran below the bank.

When he returned with his basket leaking, but still half-full, Arthur
looked at him with a more thoroughly reawakened consciousness.

"Can you drink a drop out o' your hand, sir?" said Adam, kneeling down
again to lift up Arthur's head.

"No," said Arthur, "dip my cravat in and souse it on my head."

The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised himself a
little higher, resting on Adam's arm.

"Do you feel any hurt inside sir?" Adam asked again

"No--no hurt," said Arthur, still faintly, "but rather done up."

After a while he said, "I suppose I fainted away when you knocked me
down."

"Yes, sir, thank God," said Adam. "I thought it was worse."

"What! You thought you'd done for me, eh? Come help me on my legs."

"I feel terribly shaky and dizzy," Arthur said, as he