They'll do that to you, old thing, 'cause
you're with me. Ole girl--I say, ole girl! You won't yell out, will you?
Ole girl--show them how an Eng--Eng--can die!"
She watched him, fascinated, her back against the door. With a look of
infinite cunning he began to search his pockets and produced a bundle of
papers, ordinary note-paper, pale grey with an embossed address and
telephone number at the top. He handed them to her solemnly.
"If they get me, ta' these! Lea' me! Le' me die f'r ole flag! Braved a
thous' years batt' and the breeze! Ta' these to the Gov'-Genral! He mus'
sen' these to King George! May save Buck'm Pal's! If all else falls,
mus' save Buck'm Pal's, Marshella! King George unstans code--all in
code--"
She took them dazedly in her hands. She saw that on the whitewashed wall
against which he had almost stuck himself was a great patch of wet from
his drowned clothes. He was standing with a pool of water dripping from
him; his blazing eyes were darting this way and that in terror, his
mouth was working loosely. Occasionally he lost power of speech entirely
and regained it with didactic distinctness for a few moments. He made
ineffectual grabs at Marcella, but his shaking hands failed to reach
her. His inflamed brain searched back to every horrible physical thing
he had read, or seen, every operation he had watched; his morbid
condition made them things of obscenity, atrocity.
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