Wharton smiled and shook his head, but spoke not a word.

He was in truth more shaken, stunned, and bewildered than actually injured.
The ruffian's fist had been at his throat, twisting his cravat, and for half a minute he had felt that he was choked.

As he had struggled while one woman pulled at his watch and the other searched for his purse,--struggling, alas! unsuccessfully,--the man had endeavoured to quiet him by kneeling on his chest, strangling him with his own necktie, and pressing hard on his gullet.

It is a treatment which, after a few seconds of vigorous practice, is apt to leave the patient for a while disconcerted and unwilling to speak.

"Say a word if you can," whispered Lopez, looking into the other man's face with anxious eyes.
At the moment there came across Wharton's mind a remembrance that he had behaved very badly to his friend, and some sort of vague misty doubt whether all this evil had not befallen him because of his misconduct.