When the Sleeper Wakes | Page 9

A voice
seemed to be asking what he had said, and was abruptly stilled.
The man in violet answered in a soft voice, speaking English with a
slightly foreign accent, or so at least it seemed to the Sleeper's ears,
"You are quite safe.
You were brought hither from where you fell asleep. It is quite safe.
You have been here some time -- sleeping. In a trance."
He said something further that Graham could not hear, and a little phial
was handed across to him. Graham felt a cooling spray, a fragrant mist
played over his forehead for a moment, and his sense of refreshment
increased. He closed his eyes in satisfaction.
"Better?" asked the man in violet, as Graham's eyes reopened. He was a
pleasant-faced man of thirty, perhaps, with a pointed flaxen beard, and
a clasp of gold at the neck of his violet robe.
"Yes," said Graham.
"You have been asleep some time. In a cataleptic trance. You have
heard? Catalepsy? It may seem strange to you at first, but I can assure
you everything is well."
Graham did not answer, but these words served their reassuring
purpose. His eyes went from face to face of the three people about him.
They were regarding him strangely. He knew he ought to be
somewhere in Cornwall, but he could not square these things with that
impression.

A matter that had been in his mind during his last waking moments at
Boscastle recurred, a thing resolved upon and somehow neglected. He
cleared his throat.
"Have you wired my cousin?" he asked. "E. Warming, 27, Chancery
Lane?"
They were all assiduous to hear. But he had to repeat it. "What an odd
blurr in his accent!" whispered the red-haired man. "Wire, sir?" said
the young man with the flaxen beard, evidently puzzled.
"He means send an electric telegram," volunteered the third, a
pleasant-faced youth of nineteen or twenty. The flaxen-bearded man
gave a cry of comprehension. "How stupid of me! You may be sure
everything shall be done, sir," he said to Graham. "I am afraid it would
be difficult to -- wire to your cousin. He is not in London now. But
don't trouble about arrangements yet; you have been asleep a very long
time and the important thing is to get over that, sir." (Graham
concluded the word was sir, but this man pronounced it "Sire.")
"Oh!" said Graham, and became quiet.
It was all very puzzling, but apparently these people in unfamiliar dress
knew what they were about. Yet they were odd and the room was odd.
It seemed he was in some newly established place. He had a sudden
flash of suspicion. Surely this wasn't some hall of public exhibition! If
it was he would give Warming a piece of his mind. But it scarcely had
that character. And in a place of public exhibition he would not have
discovered himself naked.
Then suddenly, quite abruptly, he realised what had happened. There
was no perceptible interval of suspicion, no dawn to his knowledge.
Abruptly he knew that his trance had lasted for a vast interval; as if by
some processes of thought reading he interpreted the awe in the faces
that peered into his. He looked at them strangely, full of intense
emotion. It seemed they read his eyes. He framed his lips to speak and
could not. A queer impulse to hide his knowledge came into his mind
almost at the moment of his discovery. He looked at his bare feet,

regarding then silently. His impulse to speak passed. He was trembling
exceedingly.
They gave him some pink fluid with a greenish fluorescence and a
meaty taste, and the assurance of returning strength grew.
"That -- that makes me feel better," he said hoarsely, and there were
murmurs of respectful approval. He knew now quite clearly. He made
to speak again, and again he could not.
He pressed his throat and tried a third time.
"How long?" he asked in a level voice. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Some considerable time," said the flaxen-bearded man, glancing
quickly at the others.
"How long?"
"A very long time."
"Yes -- yes," said Graham, suddenly testy. "But I want -- Is it -- it is --
some years? Many years? There was something -- I forget what. I feel
-- confused. But you --" He sobbed. "You need not fence with me. How
long -- ?"
He stopped, breathing irregularly. He squeezed his eyes with his
knuckles and sat waiting for an answer.
They spoke in undertones.
"Five or six?" he asked faintly. "More?"
"Very much more than that."
"Morel"
"More."

He looked at them and it seemed as though imps were twitching the
muscles of his face. He looked his question.
"Many years," said the man with the