How strange that you, whose name I had never heard until ten days back, should have rendered to Baron Pointdexter and myself two such inestimable services.
"And so, after all your exertions and fatigue, you have been keeping watch at my bedside all night ?" "I am ashamed to say that I have not been keeping watch, Philip," Desmond replied with a smile.

"I had intended to, but you were sleeping so quietly, and everything was so still, that I went off and slept, as soundly as you have done, until within half an hour of the time when you opened your eyes; but I am sure that I should have awoke at once, had you moved." "Then I am glad that I did not move, Desmond, for you must sorely need a long sleep, after having passed three days and almost three nights in the saddle." The surgeons now arrived, and were delighted at the change that had taken place in their patient.
"And when shall I be fit to travel, doctor ?" "Ah, well, we will talk of that in another fortnight's time.

You need absolute quiet, for were you to move, before your wound is fairly healed, inflammation might set in, and that would throw you back for a very long time.

You have had a very narrow escape, and you are fortunate, indeed, to have got off with only a trifling detention." "But I might be carried in a horse litter ?" "Certainly not, at present," the surgeon said decidedly.
"Possibly, in ten days, you might without danger be so carried, providing they take you in short stages and with easy-paced horses; but I should say that it would be still better, were you to be carried on men's shoulders.

There is never any difficulty in hiring men, and you could get relays every eight or ten miles, while it would be difficult to get horses accustomed to such work." "You don't think that I should be able to ride, doctor ?" "Certainly not in less than a month, probably not in six weeks." "Then I must be carried," Philip said.