By degrees they got things shipshape--put the old woman to bed,
and cleaned and dressed Mick's wounds. Then they settled down for
the long night in the sick-room. A strange sick-room it was; but
many a hospital is less healthy. Through wide cracks between the
slabs there came in the cool, fresh air that in itself is worth
more than all the medicines in the pharmacopoeia. The patient had
sunk into an uneasy slumber when Ellen made her dispositions for
the night.
"You go and lie down now," she said, "in the other room, on the
sofa. I will call you if I want you. Get all the sleep you can,
and in a couple of hours you can take my place. He may talk, but
don't let that disturb you. I will call out loud enough if I want
you."
"Mind you do," said the Englishman. "I sleep like a blessed top,
you know. Sleep anywhere. Well, good-night for the present. He
looks a little better since you washed him, doesn't he?"
He threw himself on the couch in the inner room, and before long a
titanic snore showed that he had not over-rated his sleeping powers.
Ellen Harriott sat by Red Mick's bedside and thought over the
events of the last few weeks. As she thought she half-dozed, but
woke with a start to find her patient broad awake again and trying
to get at something that was under his bunk. Quietly she drew him
back, for his struggles with Carew had left him weak as a child.
He looked at her with crazed eyes.
"The paper," he said, "for the love of God, the paper. I have to
take it to Gavan. 'Twill win the case. The paper."
She tried to pacify him, but nothing would do but that she should
get the mysterious paper. At last, to humour him, she dived under
the bunk and found an iron camp-oven, and in it a single envelope.
Just to see what was exciting him she opened the envelope, and
found a crumpled piece of paper which she read over to herself. It
was the original certificate of the marriage between Patrick Henry
Keogh and Margaret Donohoe; if Ellen had only known it, she held
in her hand the evidence to sweep away all her friend's troubles.
It so happened, however, that it conveyed nothing to her mind. She
had heard much about Considine, but not a word about Keogh, and
the name "Margaret Donohoe" did not strike her half-asleep mind as
referring to Peggy. She put the paper away again in the camp-oven;
then, feeling weary, she awoke Carew and lay down on the couch
while he watched the patient.
Next morning the Doctor arrived with a trail of Red Mick's relations
after him; among them they arranged to take him into Tarrong to
be operated on, and Ellen Harriott and Carew drove back to Kuryong
feeling as if they had known each other all their lives.