He was edging between the wall of rock and the slanting slab, and suddenly they were in the dim light of the grotto. The floor was dry and the thunder of the rain beyond the entrance seemed to come from another world.
Steerpike lowered her carefully to the ground and propped her against a flat, slanting portion of the wall. Then he pulled off his shirt and began, after wringing as much moisture from it as he could, to tear it into long narrow pieces. She watched him, fascinated in spite of the pain she was suffering. It was like watching someone from another world who was worked by another kind of machinery, by something smoother, colder, harder, swifter. Her heart rebelled against the bloodlessness of his precision, but she had begun to watch him with a grudging admiration for a quality so alien to her own temperament.
The grotto was about fifteen feet in depth, the root dipping to the earth, so that in only the first nine feet from the entrance was it possible to stand upright. Close to the arching roof, areas of the rock face were broken and fretted into dim convolutions of stone, and a fanciful eye could with a little difficulty beguile any length of time by finding among the inter-woven patterns an inexhaustible army of ghoulish or seraphic heads according to the temper of the moment.
The recesses of the grotto were in deep darkness, but it was easy enough for Fuchsia and Steerpike to see each other in the dull light near the shielded entrance.
Steerpike had torn his shirt into neat strips and had knelt down beside Fuchsia and bandaged her head and staunched the bleeding which, especially from her leg, where the injury was not so deep, was difficult to check. Her upper arm was less easy, and it was necessary for her to allow Steerpike to bare her shoulder before he could wash it clean.
She watched him as he carefully dabbed the wound. The sudden pain and shock had changed to a raw aching and she bit her lip to stop her tears. In the half light she saw his eyes smouldering in the shadowy whiteness of his face. Above the waist he was naked. What was it that made his shoulders look deformed? They were high, but were sound, though like the rest of his body, strangely taut and contracted. His chest was narrow and firm.
He removed a swab of cloth from her shoulder slowly and peered to see whether the blood would continue to flow.
‘Keep still,’ he said. ‘Keep your arm as still as you can. How’s the pain?’
‘I’m all right,’ said Fuchsia.
‘Don’t be heroic,’ he said, sitting back on his heels, ‘We’re not playing a game. I want to know
‘My leg,’ said Fuchsia. ‘It makes me want to be ill. And I’m cold. Now you know.’
Their eyes met in the half light.
Steerpike straightened himself, ‘I’m going to leave you,’ he said. ‘Otherwise the cold will gnaw you to bits, I can’t get you back to the castle alone. I’ll fetch the Prune and a stretcher. You’ll be all right here. I’ll go now, at once. We’ll be back within half an hour. I can move when I want to.’
‘Steerpike,’ said Fuchsia.
He knelt down at once. ‘What is it?’ he said, speaking very softly.
‘You’ve done quite a lot to help,’ she said.
‘Nothing much,’ he replied. His hand was close to hers.
The silence which followed became ludicrous and he got to his feet.
‘Mustn’t stay.’ He had sensed the beginning of something less frigid. He would leave things as they were. ‘You’ll be shaking like a leaf if I don’t hurry. Keep absolutely still.’
He laid his coat over her and then walked the few paces to the opening.
Fuchsia watched his hunched yet slender outline as he stood for a moment before plunging into the rain-swept gully. Then he had gone, and she remained quite still, as he had told her, and listened to the pounding of the rain.
Steerpike’s boast as to his fleetness was not an idle one. With incredible agility he leapt from boulder to boulder until he had reached the head of the gully and from there, down the long slopes of the escarpment, he sped like a Dervish. But he was not reckless. Every one of his steps was a calculated result of a decision taken at a swifter speed than his feet could travel.
At length the rocks were left behind and the castle emerged through a dull blanket.
His entrance into the Prunesquallors’ was dramatic. Irma, who had never before seen any male skin other than that which protrudes beyond the collar and the cuffs, gave a piercing cry and fell into her brother’s arms only to recover at once and to dash from the room in a typhoon of black silk. Prunesquallor and Steerpike could hear the stair rods rattling as she whirled her way up the staircase and the crashing of her bedroom door set the pictures swaying on the walls of all the downstairs rooms.
