The Romance of Golden Star | Page 7

shut them again. Since then he has slept, and I stood by
that bed testing his pulse and his breathing for eight hours before I
wired you. Then I knew he would live, and so I sent for you.'
The professor looked at his friend with an involuntary and
unconquerable aversion rising in his heart against him; an aversion that
was half fear, half horror, and then he remembered that he himself had
a share in the fearful work which had been done--a work that could not
now be undone without murder.
With another backward look at the bed, he said, in a whisper that was
almost a smothered groan,--
'When will he wake?'
Before Djama could reply, the question was answered by a faint rustle,
and a low, long-drawn sigh from the bed. They looked and saw the

Inca's face turned towards them, and two fever-bright eyes shining
through the curtains.
'He is awake already, two hours sooner than I expected,' said Djama, in
a voice that he strove vainly to keep steady. 'Come, now, you are the
only man on earth who can talk to him. Let us see if he has come back
to reason as well as to life.'
'Yes, I will try,' said the professor, faintly. He took a couple of
trembling steps. Then the lights in the room began to dance, the
whitewashed walls reeled round him, and he pitched forward and fell
unconscious by the side of the bed.
When he came to himself he was lying on the floor of the laboratory,
out of sight of the bed, behind a great cupboard, glass-doored and filled
with bottles. Djama was kneeling beside him. A strong smell of
ammonia dominated the other smells peculiar to a laboratory, and his
brow was wet with the spirit that Djama was gently rubbing on it with
his hand.
'What have I been doing?' he said, as, with the other's assistance, he got
up into a sitting position and looked stupidly about him. 'It isn't true,
that is it, I really saw--Good God no, it can't be; it's too horrible. I must
have dreamt it.'
'Nonsense, my dear fellow, nonsense! I should have thought you would
have had better nerves than that. Come, take a nip of this, and pull
yourself together. There is nothing so very horrible about it for you.
Now, if you had had the actual work to do--'
'Then it is true! You really have brought him back to life again? That
was him I saw lying on the bed?' He looked up at Djama as he spoke
with a half-inquiring, half-frightened glance. His voice was weak and
unsteady, like the voice of a man who has been stunned by some
terrible shock, and is still dazed with the fear and wonder of it.
'Yes, of course it was,' said Djama; 'but I can tell you, I should have
hesitated before I introduced you so suddenly, if I hadn't thought that

the nerves of an old traveller like you would have been a good deal
stronger than they seem to be. It's a very good job that His Highness
was only about half conscious himself when you collapsed, or you
might have given him a shock that would have killed him again.'
'Again?' said the professor, echoing the last word as he got up slowly to
his feet. 'That sounds queer, doesn't it, to talk of killing a man again? I
am more sorry than I can say that I was weak enough to let my feelings
overcome me in such a ridiculous fashion. However, I am all right now.
Give me another drain of that brandy of yours, and then let us talk. Is
he still awake?'
'No, he dozed off again almost immediately, and you have been here
about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Do you think you can stand
another look at him?'
'Oh, certainly,' said the professor, who, as a matter of fact, felt a trifle
ashamed of himself and his weakness, and was anxious to do
something that would restore his credit. He followed the doctor out into
the laboratory again, and stood with him for some moments without
speaking by the Inca's bedside. He was sleeping very quietly, and his
breathing seemed to be stronger and deeper than it had been. He had
slightly shifted his position, and was lying now half turned on his right
side, with his right cheek on the pillow.
'You see he has moved,' whispered Djama. 'That shows that muscular
control has been re-established. We shall have him walking about in a
day or so. Ah! he is dreaming, and of something pleasant, too. Look at
his lips moving into a smile. Poor fellow, just fancy a man dreaming of
things that