Early they saw that the woman's
strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that
nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life
hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain
and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never
yet stood before so great a mystery.
With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder
passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four
short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead.
Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he
could not bear to see it.
They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have
done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a
cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of
Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they
wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took
him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in
front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one
of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32