king up from time to time and asking for more drink.

Twice during the night and early morning Maqueda sent to inquire as to
his condition, and, apparently not satisfied with the replies, about ten
in the forenoon arrived herself, accompanied by two waiting-ladies and a
long-bearded old gentleman who, I understood, was the court physician.

"May I see him?" she asked anxiously.

I answered yes, if she and those with her were quite quiet. Then I led
them into the darkened room where Quick stood like a statue at the head
of the bed, only acknowledging her presence with a silent salute. She
gazed at Oliver's flushed face and the forehead blackened where the
gases from the explosion had struck him, and as she gazed I saw her
beautiful violet eyes fill with tears. Then abruptly she turned and
left the sick-chamber. Outside its doors she waved back her attendants
imperiously and asked me in a whisper:

"Will he live?"

"I do not know," I answered, for I thought it best that she should learn
the truth. "If he is only suffering from shock, fatigue, and fever, I
think so, but if the explosion or the blow on his head where it cut has
fractured the skull, then----"

"Save him," she muttered. "I will give you all I--nay, pardon me; what
need is there to tempt you, his friend, with reward? Only save him, save
him."

"I will do what I can, Lady, but the issue is in other hands than mine,"
I answered, and just then her attendants came up and put an end to the
conversation.

To this day the memory of that old rabbi, the court physician, affects
me like a nightmare, for of all the medical fools that ever I met he
was by far the most pre-eminent. All about the place he followed me
suggesting remedies that would have been absurd even in the Middle Ages.
The least harmful of them, I remember, was that poor Orme's head should
be plastered with a compound of butter and the bones of a still-born
child, and that he should be given some filthy compound to drink which
had been specially blessed by the priests. Others there were also that
would certainly have killed him in half-an-hour.

Well, I got rid of him at last for the time, and returned to my vigil.
It was melancholy work, since no skill that I had could tell me whether
my patient would live or die. Nowadays the young men might know, or
say that they did, but it must be remembered that, as a doctor, I am
entirely superannuated. How could it be otherwise, seeing that I have
pass