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قراءة كتاب Foul Play
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daughter's story from Wilson, and aroused his male servants, one of whom was an old soldier. They searched the house first; but no entrance had been effected; so they went out on the lawn with blunderbuss and pistol.
They found a man lying on his back at the foot of the bay window.
They pounced on him, and, to their amazement, it was the gardener, James Seaton. Insensible.
General Rolleston was quite taken aback for a moment. Then he was sorry. But, after a little reflection, he said very sternly, "Carry the blackguard indoors; and run for an officer."
Seaton was taken into the hall and laid flat on the floor.
All the servants gathered about him, brimful of curiosity, and the female ones began to speak all together; but General Rolleston told them sharply to hold their tongues, and to retire behind the man. "Somebody sprinkle him with cold water," said he; "and be quiet, all of you, and keep out of sight, while I examine him." He stood before the insensible figure with his arms folded, amid a dead silence, broken only by the stifled sobs of Sarah Wilson, and of a sociable housemaid who cried with her for company.
And now Seaton began to writhe and show signs of returning sense.
Next he moaned piteously, and sighed. But General Rolleston could not pity him; he waited grimly for returning consciousness, to subject him to a merciless interrogatory.
He waited just one second too long. He had to answer a question instead of putting one.
The judgment is the last faculty a man recovers when emerging from insensibility; and Seaton, seeing the general standing before him, stretched out his hands, and said, in a faint, but earnest voice, before eleven witnesses, "Is she safe? Oh, is she safe?"