sick-room. The experiences through which I had passed, my
long, midnight journey, together with the feverish anxiety under which I
was suffering, made me forget myself.

'I am his only friend,' I went on, 'and I have a right to be here, and I
have a right to know everything. What is it? What have you done?'

Scarcely realizing what I was doing, I went to the window and pulled up
the blinds. Day was breaking, the sky was clear, and the eastern horizon
was tinged with the light of the rising sun. In the light of the
new-born day, the lamp looked sickly and out of place. I remember, too,
that it made a strange impression upon me; it seemed as though light were
fighting with darkness, and that light was being triumphant.

'Don't be an ass, Luscombe,' said the Scotchman; 'I will tell you
everything presently, but can't you see that----'

'I can see that he's going to live,' I interrupted. 'His face is more
natural; it doesn't look so rigid. I believe there is colour coming into
his lips.'

'Find your way into the kitchen, there are some servants there, and bring
some hot water immediately.'

For the next hour, I scarcely remember anything that happened. I imagine
that I was so excited that my experiences left no definite impress upon
my brain. I have indistinct remembrances of alternating between hope and
despair, between joy and sorrow. I remember, too, that I was called upon
to perform certain actions, but to this day I do not know what they were.
I was more like an automaton than a man.

At the end of the hour, however, Colonel McClure accompanied me into my
bedroom, which, as I have said, adjoined that of Edgecumbe.

'We've done it, my boy,' he said, and I noted the satisfaction in his
voice.

'He will live, then?'

He nodded. 'Barring accidents, he will. But it's a mystery to me.'

'What is a mystery?'

'I hardly like to tell you. But you are no hysterical woman, and you
have a steady head on you. Until an hour and a half ago, I was acting in
the dark, acting blindly. Even now I have no proof of anything. You say
your friend was in India?'

'I have told you all I know,' was my answer.

'I spent twelve years there,' went on the colonel. 'A great part of the
time I was with native regiments, and I have had some peculiar
experiences. India's a strange country, and in many things the people
there can teach us Westerners a lot. Look here, why did you come for me?'

'Instinct,' I replied.