ed the best of my life in the desert without any opportunity of
keeping up with the times.

Three days went by in this fashion, and very anxious days they were. For
my part, although I said nothing of it to any one, I believed that there
was some injury to the patient's skull and that he would die, or at best
be paralyzed. Quick, however, had a different opinion. He said that he
had seen two men in this state before from the concussion caused by
the bursting of large shells near to them, and that they both recovered
although one of them became an idiot.

But it was Maqueda who first gave me any definite hope. On the third
evening she came and sat by Orme for awhile, her attendants standing
at a little distance. When she left him there was a new look upon her
face--a very joyful look--which caused me to ask her what had happened.

"Oh! he will live," she answered.

I inquired what made her think so.

"This," she replied, blushing. "Suddenly he looked up and in my own
tongue asked me of what colour were my eyes. I answered that it depended
upon the light in which they might be seen.

"'Not at all,' he said. 'They are always _vi-o-let_, whether the curtain
is drawn or no.' Now, physician Adams, tell me what is this colour
_vi-o-let_?"

"That of a little wild flower which grows in the West in the spring, O
Maqueda--a very beautiful and sweet-scented flower which is dark blue
like your eyes."

"Indeed, Physician," she said. "Well, I do not know this flower, but
what of that? Your friend will live and be sane. A dying man does not
trouble about the colour of a lady's eyes, and one who is mad does not
give that colour right."

"Are you glad, O Child of Kings?" I asked.

"Of course," she answered, "seeing that I am told that this captain
alone can handle the firestuffs which you have brought with you, and,
therefore, that it is necessary to me that he should not die."

"I understand," I replied. "Let us pray that we may keep him alive. But
there are many kinds of firestuffs, O Maqueda, and of one of them
which chances to give out violet flames I am not sure that my friend is
master. Yet in this country it may be the most dangerous of all."

Now when she heard these words the Child of Kings looked me up and down
angrily. Then suddenly she laughed a little in a kind of silent way that
is peculiar to her, and, without saying anything, beckoned to her ladies
and left the place.

"Very variegated thing, woman, sir,"