ling not,--there he stood,
fixed, while one might count ten. Then over his blue lips, like a
ghost from its tomb, stole a low and hissing whisper, that curdled
our blood, and peopled all the room with dreadful things,--a low
whisper that said,--

"Prithee, see there! behold! it comes! it comes!" Now he beckoned in
the air, and called with a shuddering, smothered shriek,--"Come! I
did it! come! Ha!" yelled he, plucking the spell from his limbs like
a garment, and springing madly forward towards the door,--"Ha! touch
me not! Off, I say, off!" He paused, gazed wildly round, flung his
hand to his brow, and, while his eyes rolled till nothing but their
whites were seen, while the purple veins swelled like mole-tracks in
his forehead, and a bubbling froth began to gather about his lips, he
tossed his arms in the air, gave shrieking utterance to the cry,--"O
Christ! it is gone! it is gone!" and fell to the floor with a bound.

We sprang to him,--Thorne first of any.

"This is my place, gentlemen," said he, in quick, nervous tones.
Then, taking the prostrate child into his arms, he carried him to his
bed, laid him down, felt his pulse, and placed his head in Mac's
arms. Returning then, he veiled the picture, flung the salver out of
the window, and dismissed the huddled throng of frightened students,
warning them to be silent as to the night's events. "Very likely
Clarian will never see to-morrow; so be careful, lest you soil his
memory."

"What does it mean, Thorne?" asked Mac, as the Doctor and I came
again to the bedside. "It is nothing more than an overdose of
_cannabis_ or opium upon an excited nervous system, is it?"

Thorne looked at the delicate-limbed child who lay there in Mac's
strong arms, wiped away the gathering froth from the lips, replaced
the feebly quivering limbs, and, as he lingered over the pulse,
replied,--

"He has been taking _hashish_?"

"He _has_ taken it,--I do not say he is under its influence now."

"No,--he has not touched any stimulant. This is much worse than
that,--this means epilepsy, Mac, and we may have to choose between
death and idiocy."

He was still examining the boy, and showing Mac how to hold him most
comfortably.

"If I could only get at the _causes_ of this attack,--those, I mean,
which lie deeper than the mere physical disorder,--if I could only
find out what it is he has been doing,--and I could, easily, were I
not afraid of directing suspicion towards him, or bringing