ds.
There they laid him among the snow, where he was found by the night
patrol, who carried him on a shutter to the hospital. He was duly
examined by the resident surgeon, who bound up the wounded head, but
gave it as his opinion that the man could not possibly live for more
than twelve hours.

Twelve hours passed, however, and yet another twelve, but John Huxford
still struggled hard for his life. When at the end of three days he was
found to be still breathing, the interest of the doctors became aroused
at his extraordinary vitality, and they bled him, as the fashion was in
those days, and surrounded his shattered head with icebags. It may have
been on account of these measures, or it may have been in spite of
them, but at the end of a week's deep trance the nurse in charge was
astonished to hear a gabbling noise, and to find the stranger sitting up
upon the couch and staring about him with wistful, wondering eyes.
The surgeons were summoned to behold the phenomenon, and warmly
congratulated each other upon the success of their treatment.

"You have been on the brink of the grave, my man," said one of them,
pressing the bandaged head back on to the pillow; "you must not excite
yourself. What is your name?"

No answer, save a wild stare.

"Where do you come from?"

Again no answer.

"He is mad," one suggested. "Or a foreigner," said another. "There were
no papers on him when he came in. His linen is marked 'J. H.' Let us try
him in French and German."

They tested him with as many tongues as they could muster among them,
but were compelled at last to give the matter over and to leave their
silent patient, still staring up wild-eyed at the whitewashed hospital
ceiling.

For many weeks John lay in the hospital, and for many weeks efforts were
made to gain some clue as to his antecedents, but in vain. He showed,
as the time rolled by, not only by his demeanour, but also by the
intelligence with which he began to pick up fragments of sentences, like
a clever child learning to talk, that his mind was strong enough in the
present, though it was a complete blank as to the past. The man's memory
of his whole life before the fatal blow was entirely and absolutely
erased. He neither knew his name, his language, his home, his business,
nor anything else. The doctors held learned consultations upon him,
and discoursed upon the centre of memory and depressed tables, deranged
nerve-cells and cerebral congestions, but all